Changing Your Mindset

 

Hello!  I hope that you had a wonderful weekend and are starting your week off on the right foot.  Monday's set the tone for your week, so if you are prepared with healthy meals and snacks, and have your workouts scheduled you will be more likely to stay on track for the day and set a healthy tone for your week.  Do you prepare your food and set your weekly workout schedule ahead of time?

 I have been working on staying on track on the weekends as much as I am during the week.  This weekend was great! We went out to dinner Friday night and I had Chilean sea bass, its my favorite fish, with some spinach and tomatoes.  It is easy to skip the bread basket now, I don't feel tempted or miss it at all.  I think that once the grains and white processed stuff is out of your system you don't crave it anymore.  On Saturday we had a wedding, and like most weddings I knew it would be a while till we had dinner so I ate some chicken and veggies before we left.  Smart move on my part, it was family style and the food took a really long time to get.  So I had to wait for the chicken, meat and veggies to make their way, after passing up two huge plates of sauce laden pasta, and honestly it didn't even look good to me.  Once the chicken came I noticed it was breaded (damn), but the meat looked okay so I piled that on with some zucchini, summer squash and carrots.  I ate enough until I was full and then drank a ton of water.  I decided I wanted to see if I could keep up the willpower to not drink... and to my surprise I was able to.  After the wedding we went with some friends to another bar, and then we decided to grab a bite to eat, thankfully, because I was hungry!!  We went to a coney island, not the best place for clean eats, but the only place open at 2 am, besides the drive thrus and you know how I feel about those!  I had a tomato and spinach omelet with some bacon, and it was decent and Paleo at least.  Waking up the next morning was awesome because I wasn't hungover and didn't have a stomach ache from eating foods I know I shouldn't.  All in all a successful weekend.


This got me to thinking about how important your mindset is to reaching your goals.  If you truly believe that you can achieve your goals, you are halfway there.  When you are going into a situation where you are not totally in control of the food situation you have to do the best you can and prepare yourself mentally ahead of time.  It is easy to give in to what others are doing or have a drink because everyone else is if you haven't planned ahead of time and decided to stay strong in your convictions.  I am working on my goals of losing fat and gaining muscle, but at the same time I am working on believing that I can create the body that I want.  It is so much easier to give up when you are not seeing the results you want as fast as you want.  The hard part comes from staying the course even when things get tough!  I know that if I give into temptation every time it is there then I will never reach my goals.  Have you ever made it through a night of temptations and then realize that you had the strength to do that all along?  It feels really good to stay the course and stay on track.

I have changed my mindset to Food as Fuel.  This helps to put only good food in and skip the junk that will make me feel like crap.  I am also listening to my body and eating when I am hungry, stopping when I am full and allowing a few treats when I want them.  The only thing that I really crave or want is dark chocolate.  I have found a few clean versions of the treats that I want and stick with those when I want chocolate.  The first is Alter Ego 85% Organic Dark Chocolate, one square is satisfying and very low in sugar, the second is Justin's Organic Dark Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups (I know PB is not paleo, but the small amount I have is not going to throw me all off), I usually have one a week when I feel like I need some chocolate. Once you stop eating processed stuff with lots of sugar the organic dark chocolate tastes sweet enough.  When you eat the processed stuff with all the sugar it sets off a chemical reaction in the pleasure center of your brain and this will make you crave those kinds of foods,   so when you make the decision to stop eating that stuff your body will detox of those chemicals and you stop craving them.  This is why Paleo has worked so well for me, after the initial week or two I stopped craving and missing the processed foods.  I now know that if it is Paleo I can eat it and if not I don't.  Whatever your specific eating plan is make the decision to stick to it and give it your all, you will be surprised how strong you really are.

Your mind is so powerful when it comes to achieving your goals.  Really set your intentions and constantly remind yourself why you are working on your goals, this helps to keep you on track.  There is a blog I read Glam Legacy Fit written by Anna Richardson, WBFF competitor, and a few of her sayings that have stuck with me.  The first is "Why NOT Me?"  This one keeps me going when I am ready to give up because I am not seeing the results as fast as I would like.  I really still want to give a bikini competition a go before we have another baby, so I am trying to keep that in the back of my mind on days like those.  The second is "Results are beyond genetics, work hard and the results will come!"  Now that I am older I don't lose weight as fast as I once was, and I have to push harder and keep my nutrition cleaner.  I have been consistent with my weight training workouts for 6 weeks, but have only started adding in the heavier weights the past few weeks.  I have been doing Paleo for 4 weeks now, and besides a few cheats, I have been doing well with that.  I am going to stay on pace and keep my goals in mind and not quit when the going gets tough, I will push harder and keep moving forward!

How do you keep moving toward your goals?  What are your mantras and motivations?  Have you set your WHY?