30 Nov Transformation, part 1: Diet plans are unsustainable
Transformation
[trans-fer-mey-shuh n]
noun
- the act or process of transforming.
- the state of being transformed.
- change in form, appearance, nature, or character.
Transformation is an operation or process that converts you from your existing state to you into another, newer more desirable state. Like so many processes, there is a formula and components. To get it right, the formula must work and the components must be applied. If they do not, it fails.
Before you even start, you must ask yourself ‘Why’.
Why do you want to Transform yourself or better yourself?
What are the reasons?
You must be brutally honest and selfish here and you must do it for yourself and for nobody else. You have probably literally spent years of your life searching for the one piece of magic that would lead to a complete transformation and turn you into a lean bad ass. It was most likely cutting out carbs, going on an incredibly low calorie diet, Paleo, Vegan or Juice.
You have tried it all
Each time, regardless of what plan you went on, you did loose weight. But then you would eventually gain it back, and sometimes gain more than before. These setbacks and results basically lead to years of “weight cycling”, which can not only be frustrating and highly discouraging, but it has also been shown in research to be very damaging to your health.
Following on from the FUEL TO PERFORM blog, we removed the word ‘diet’ from our vocabulary and replaced it with ‘fuel’. It adjusted our nutritional mindset to how we view food. We now view it as a source of Fuel and are looking to fuel our performance, both professionally and socially. Once you view food for what it actually is, all of your previous plans look completely pointless.
Here’s why these plans weren’t sustainable
These failed transformations lead to you beating yourself up. It becomes mental, a mind game. This is where the problem lies. Your mindset is wrong and your mental approach and attitude to eating and training is wrong. You failed even before you started. Beating yourself up is not the way to go about it. What you want is lasting change. You want longevity. You want to be permanently transformed and to look and feel good all of the time. If you want lasting change, you need a new way of thinking about transformation.
It is not the fact that you didn’t find the perfect diet plan, it was your mindset that accompanied each diet plan that kept you from reaching your goals. Your goals must be long term and in order for you to meet your long term goals you must change your mindset and your approach to eating. Fuel to perform and start a Fuel Plan. When embarking on a difficult journey, you must prepare and plan your fuel plan appropriately.
In order for you to buy into the fuel plan mindset that will motivate you to get you through a challenging process in your eating habits, you are going to have to buy into some pretty difficult beliefs about why you are really transforming yourself.
You believed that aesthetics will make you happy
You see this all the time in transformation and weight loss marketing; an overweight, out of shape “before” picture looking miserable with terrible posture and unwashed hair. Then, a stunningly transformed awesome “after” picture, wearing smaller clothes and a smaller waist, better hair, better posture and a smile.
The transformation/weight loss industry has done such a good job of tying your happiness to your weight that we now seem to believe it. It is as if losing weight is a magical path to happiness.
But it’s not. It’s great that you lose weight but it is only a small piece of the puzzle. Every time you get down to you “ideal weight”, you would feel somewhat empty inside. You feel incomplete. When you feel this, the weight comes back, and you find yourself even more miserable. You failed, again.
Nothing is going to work unless you learn to be happy and shift to a more positive mindset. Like attracts like. Love yourself. You must be happy and think positive, regardless of your weight. When you achieve this, I guarantee that you will actually be able to successfully lose weight.
Next up will be part 2, where I’ll be discussing how you should be listening to your body and what it needs in order to transform yourself.