Keep on going with a life that’s healthy and clean? Check out this article, that bends the mind and transforms the body into peace!
So, we have already started out on our lifestyle transforming journey and trying out one of the well-designed plans that is supposed to help us reach our goals. The backup plans are ready to be pulled out of our back pocket whenever needed, and we’re learning something new about ourselves every day.
That’s great!
We may have already lost some weight, although it’s most likely just some water weight because of our new diet, and not an actual fat weight, it still can boost our mood and justifies our efforts.
1. The power of words
Soon, we’ll hit a plateau though or simply get discouraged because the process isn’t as fast as expected, and we are there without motivation to continue.
It will happen.
Motivation is a very subtle thing that only lasts until the first splinters of doubt creep into the crevices of our brain. Like a spark that starts a flame. It’s blazing bright that could light up a whole room but it only lasts for a moment. To succeed at any long-term goal, the spark of motivation needs to start the slow and steady flame on the candle of conscientiousness.
Even with fun things like sugar, coffee, alcohol, gambling, we only have the same amount of motivation (which is basically just pure dopamine our body makes to make us feel good about things) only once.
We need to keep increasing the amount of substance or impulse affecting our body to get the same level of joy out of it, and keep us move forward. This is how addictions work after all.
Unfortunately, the same methods don’t work the other way around and try to wane ourselves off of such things. We can’t drink negative amounts of alcohol or eat negative sugar to get us off the substance quicker. What’s even worse when we are forbidden to do something, we want it even more.
Apparently, we don’t really like it when our perceived freedom is limited by external forces. We immediately get on the defensive and protect our own at any cost.
Luckily though, there is a method to this madness and if we learn to exploit its weaknesses, we can turn these processes to our advantage.
For example, if we set barriers for ourselves as opposed to force upon us, and define our existence as such, filling that space by our own free will, we can live a quite happy life.
This is how our conscious mind makes up things to make sense of the world, and justify the sometime senseless whims of our unconscious mind’s actions anyway. So, it’s not like we don’t have much real-world experience in this, only we aren’t consciously aware of it. Until now, that is.
Defining the self
While in theory, these practices may sound far-fetched, generic and hard to achieve, in practice all we need to do is use words that create the desired mental state in which through we perceive the world differently.
Defining our chosen diet or lifestyle by words that impose outside forced restriction such as
- “I can’t have this.”
- “This is not allowed.”
- “It’s forbidden”
- is counterproductive because of how our brain is wired by default.
- Using words that implies that our choice is derived from our own free will such as
- “I’m a person who doesn’t do sugar.”
- “I don’t take sugar.”
- “I don’t do sugar.”
- “We are not compatible.”
- “I’m not that kind of person.”
- “It’s not good for me.”
- “This is not a treat for me.”
These phrases create a mental state where we place ourselves into a world where we choose to be in, not forced into.
Although this mind hack eliminates the outside pressure, it doesn’t create a better world where we can live happily after.
Defining the world
If anyone has ever heard about the thought experiment of “not thinking about the pink elephant” then it should be obvious that our brain is not capable of thinking negatively.
As much as we cannot think about the pink elephant, once it’s in our mind, we can’t eliminate other thoughts either. Our only option is to think about something else that will take its place up.
So to translate this theory into real life, instead of keep repeating who we aren’t, we need to define who we actually are. Of course, this is much harder because it requires some soul searching and goal settings but in the long term, we’ll benefit from such mental exercises big time.
Phrases like
- “I like savory”.
- “I only do [insert sweetener here]”,
- I use [insert sweetener here],
- I have (insert food here) in my meal plan soon/later/today,
- I eat naturally.
- I’m a person who does xxxx.
- I do things xxxxx way.
- I eat whole food during the week.
- I eat refined carbs on the weekends.
- “I have my treat day on the weekend.”
or similar positive, reinforcing sentences will create a positive world where we don’t have to fight against perceived restrictions because we simply don’t have any by our own free choice.
Although, we may deem such mental tricks unnecessary, useless or not applicable for us, psychology, marketing and social media studies say otherwise.
2. The power of the mind
It’s a fascinating fact that 90% of US drivers think, they are better drivers than the average and 60% of teachers think, they are better teachers than the average.
Psychology calls this the Dunning-Kruger effect from the scientists first describing the phenomenon of celebrating our own ignorance and overestimating our knowledge in any given subject, the less we know about it.
Being rational is a hard thing for human beings because our whole existence is underpinned by impulsiveness of survival instincts not just on an individual level but as a species too.
As we’ve already talked about it during Why habits form, we spend at least 60% of our awaken time doing automated tasks that can reach 90% on some days. Making truly rational decisions must fall onto the remaining time which is only possible if we manage to clear our mind of earthy desires that otherwise would constantly influence our decisions.
When in doubt that such numbers are indeed possible, just watch a magician playing tricks simply by overloading our mind with more information that we can process. According to some estimates (link), our brain works at a bandwidth of about 200Mhz. Which doesn’t say much for many of us but by comparison an average modern computer works at around 3000MHz simultaneously on 4 – 8 cores.
That puny 200mhz bandwidth can be easily overloaded, even without a magician playing music, showing scantily dressed girls and doing tricks at the same time. If anyone has ever turned the radio down or switched it off during a reverse maneuver in the car then that’s just reaching one’s limit of processing power caught red handed.
These examples, of course, doesn’t meant that computers are more clever than us but that our information processing is far worse than theirs which is the reason, we delegate such tasks to computers whenever we can.
Unfortunately, we can’t do much about our limited processing power until biotechnology succeeds planting computer interfaces into our brains. Until then, we have to make do with the resources we have available and delegate our long-term planning and subconscious training to times when we are in full control, which is actually much harder than we first thought.
Many great thinkers who used their mind to swing humanity’s fate were aware of its limitations. Not only did Leonardo Da Vinci recognize that his brain couldn’t work more than about 4 hours a day in a highly concentrated state, but modern research seems to back this up, too.
Worse yet, that this 4-hour limit isn’t something we have neatly sealed up in a bottle unaffected by anything waiting to be unleashed on command like popping open an energy drink. It’s more like a car’s fuel tank or nowadays battery. We can use it to go fast, which needs more fuel, hence shorter overall distance, or we can choose to go slower and cover greater distances, but not both.
The economy of our brain power works similarly. We can make it focus harder for a short period such as the 4 hours or spread our attention across many other things over time.
Unfortunately, this works the other way around too, though. Since we aren’t cars that can be turned off when not in use so once we are awake, our conscious brain is working on processing the environment, looking for possible threats (yeah, thanks evolution)) using up our daily allocated attention credit.
3. The power of the world
The more things we have around us, like a cluttered home or work environment with all those lovely photos, gifts and knick-knacks, the more things our brain needs to process and the less we are able to concentrate on singular things.
What makes matters worse is that we aren’t really equipped with sensors, or any built-in method that can measure our brain’s processing resources. In fact, the only way we know about these things is to see them in action, take notes then draw conclusions from our productivity results.
This is how we also know that once we dive into something, we need about 15 minutes to get out of the flow and get into a new one. Being pulled out of one abruptly, such as coworkers interrupt, a call from a family member, or kids breaking into our home office, can result in an unexpected outburst of frustration.
While we may think that we are exempt from such things and live our life at our peak potential, only once we get out of our comfort zone, and reach higher levels, are we able to look back on our previous ignorance.
No one is capable of looking through walls or thinking out of the box until the walls are scaled, and we see what’s outside.
“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at the mirror and make a change.” – Michel Jackson
Our thoughts expand influence over the world, not just by our actions but through our words too. The new world we create, through these ideas, affects others, making an impact on their lives. This, in turn, implies, that the world we live in – created by others or by us- influences our life too.
So, when we create a living space for ourselves or just simply move into one created for us, impacts on our whole view of life.
Those, who have learnt the ancient art of feng shui. already know that a clutter free home is essential for the free flow of energy but now we have science backs up why we feel at ease when the chi flows undisturbed.
Although decluttering a home can be a daunting task not just because of our insatiable appetite for owning stuff but because getting rid of things sometimes feels like we are throwing out our past memories and unmaterialized dreams.
Life is like a big chunk of raw rock, and the sooner we realize what sculpture we’d like to be, the sooner we can start chiseling off the parts weighing us down, materializing our true self.
4. The power of people
We can see how the things, we surround ourselves with, influence our mood, brain power and decision making but life is not just about materials. It’s more about people around us.
Since we like to conform to social norms by nature, people we surround ourselves with have a direct effect on our decisions. We’ve already talked about how easily we can normalize obesity, drinking, smoking or basically anything that’s more prominent in our vicinity, and compare ourselves to that local normality.
So, if we want to achieve goals that may be well out of the perceived normality, our success rate exponentially grows if we surround ourselves with people who not only understand but are able to support us throughout the journey. Unfortunately, this stands true the other way around too.
If we have people around us who don’t share our goals, don’t care or even worse, purposefully hold us back, our chance for success dramatically diminishes.
Common complaint nowadays from parents that kids don’t eat their vegetables, or they are picky eaters but how could we expect them to be otherwise when we don’t lead by examples.
When it comes to lifestyle changes, the more people are on board, the better we are able to stay on track. Such efforts are more important at the beginning when new habits are formed. Once we’ve carved out our new way of life, staying on track is much easier and surrounding temptations are easily rejected.
Unfortunately, when it comes to lifestyle changes, it’s not always so easy to get other people on board, especially if they don’t see that their life requires any improvement or more likely they don’t perceive that the improvements, they could gain from lifestyle changes are a worthy exchange for their presumably pleasureful life.
Luckily, in this modern era, we have options to surround ourselves with like-minded people, thanks almost instantly. Joining an online community and have their support at our fingertip can help us through some deep and dark valleys. Also, we shouldn’t shun the good old methods and hook up with a training buddy or just someone who is sharing the same journey as we do.
Simple mental roadblocks introduced in the form of challenges could be useful for short term gains or introducing changes without weighing too heavily on our minds. However, it’s always better to strive for long term success, keeping balance and working on establishing healthy habits instead of simply restricting something then mindlessly suffering it through without any clear benefits at the end, when we can’t seem to cope with certain pesky stuff, banning them seems the only viable way.
So, getting rid of all the peanut butter, potato chips or introducing “pizza free” weeks as a way of avoiding binging on them could help us nudging our progress in the desired direction.
5. The Power of Science
While losing weight fundamentally is a simple chemically driven process, its execution depends on how well we manage our subconscious brain that is responsible for our general wellbeing. Since we come to the weight loss journey from different backgrounds, body type and life experiences, it can vary greatly how we can achieve it.
Unfortunately, there is no magic or overnight solution to weight loss or for weight gain. Our body needs energy to function. If we provide too much of such energy, it gets stored as fat on our body which we recognize as weight gain. If we happen to provide too little energy then the body is forced to use up its energy storage, so we lose weight.
Of course, we are talking about absolute numbers because our weight is constantly fluctuating during a day as much as 4lbs / 2kg or 10lbs / 5kg per week just because we lose water weight or gain it back due to changes in diet, menstrual cycle or just a passing illness.
Since daily weight loss, or weight gain for that matter, is so saddle we can’t reliably measure it on a daily basis. To get the most accurate picture of where we are, we need to take note of it every day at the same time, preferably in the morning after getting rid of bodily waste but before taking anything in. Once averaging our daily results, and comparing them with the new ones, we can see if our progress is on a downward trajectory. Whether we lose weight, trending upward or we’re picking up some or going steady so we are at maintenance.
In the strictest sense, the diet we follow is irrelevant. We can do keto, paleo, sugar free, gluten free, vegan or churros diet as long as we maintain energy deficit, our body is forced to use its energy storage to function, and we lose weight.
What we need to keep in mind is that 1kg / 2lbs fat is about 7700kcal which means that if we can do 500kcal deficit daily then we can end up 3500kcal deficit in a week which translates to about 0.5kg / 1lb fat loss in a week. The greater the deficit is, the bigger the weight loss and faster we can achieve our goals.
Starting a diet, without knowing about our body energy requirement and calorie intake, is probably the most stupid thing we can do when trying to lose weight. It sets us up for failure every single time if we don’t learn about the real nutritional needs of our body and its corresponding energy intake.
Yet, many times we just jump into a fad diet, we don’t only expect results, but we expect them to last even after we get off the diet.
When our aim is also to build muscles, things get a tad bit more complicated because muscles building requires not just calorie surplus but adequate amount of protein, fiber and healthy fat, apart from various other nutrition too.
6. Nutrition
Getting into the nutrition game is a time hog. No doubt about it. Yet, most of us aren’t really into cooking something new every day nor even every week. We have tried and tested recipes that fill most of our diet, and many of us, even if on a holiday to a foreign country, mostly prefer to eat the same food over local unknown cuisine.
This means that we only have to calculate the calories and protein for our recipes once, and then we can simply reuse them. If we haven’t got time do all at once, that’s perfectly fine. This is a long-term game. If we just enter one recipe a day at the end of a month, we have 30 recipes that cover most of our needs.
Once we have our recipe database of common meals we eat, logging them isn’t that big of a deal nor is adding a couple of other recipes that we don’t eat that often.
Fat
Although we try to lose weight, and fat is the most energy dense food out there, hence the first to be get rid of in our daily diet, fat is an essential part of our body’s needs. There are vitamins that need fat and hormones that can wreck a pretty bad havoc on our body if there isn’t enough fat for them in our body system. So, we need fat but not all fats are created equal.
We need good fat that doesn’t hinder our body which are known as polyunsaturated fats such as omega 3 and 6. The so-called western diet has plenty of omega 6 but omega 3 are harder to come by without taking the extra mile and way too much bad fat.
Luckily, as long as we have enough fat stored in our body, we don’t really have to worry about this stuff, but once we like to go to 6 pack territory, which lies under 15 – 20 body fat percentage, our body will crave fatty food too and we better be ready, else face serious consequences.
So, to avoid problems, we need to make sure, we have access to the right kind of fat when we need it.
Carbs
Carbs are the second biggest food group and the favorite of us all. Carbs have become something of a bogeyman of late with the advent of new diets such as keto but not all carbs are created equal.
Similarly to fats, there are good carbs too. In fact, there are more good carbs than bad, but we prefer to eat those few that taste good but provide little to nothing nutritional value. Yet, even those refined carbs can be consumed in moderation given that we aren’t allergic to them, of course.
Unfortunately, some carbs, such as refined sugar, are pretty hard to include in our diet in moderation, mostly because we’ve been made sugar addicts in childhood and controlling addiction is more than just controlling the substance it’s causing it.
Still, this doesn’t mean that we have to ban all the carbs. Especially because we need things like fiber to move stuff through our intestines. Fibers are insoluble part of the carbs such as the bran of wheat or skin of fruits, and vegetables. Not to mention the vitamins that are a necessary part of our diet.
WHO fiber recommendation
Protein
It’s not like we should prioritize one group of food over the other because for a balanced life all of them are equally important, but apparently some are more equal than the others, and that is protein. Protein is the only way our body can absorb nitrogen which is an essential element for all living organisms. Without nitrogen the body is not able to create new cells, hence repair itself. This comes as bad news for anyone who tries to build muscles, recover from illnesses, or just try to live a long life.
So, it should come to no surprise that the body pegs regulating hunger hormone levels to protein intake. Which means that if we don’t eat enough protein, we are constantly hungry and thanks to readily available junk food wherever we see, we overeat stuff high in carbs and bad fat. Sure, sugar’s ability to make us binge on it, doesn’t help much either, nor if we use food to sooth our mental problems, yet these needs have different solutions.
7. Mealtimes
Consistent mealtimes are the groundwork for a consistent lifestyle. Without having mealtimes at the same time every day, controlling physical hunger will be a constant challenge that we lose more often than not. Hunger hormone level (ghrelin) that is made by the stomach, increase 20 – 40 minutes before regular mealtimes to signal the body that the stomach is ready to digest whatever thrown into it. Regular mealtimes can be changed fairly easily. The only downside is, that it takes about two weeks to get used to the new system and until that we’ll have to fight hunger. It doesn’t matter if we don’t have breakfast or are not really fond of having lunch. As long as we do it consistently, the body will adapt, and we’ll be able to control it to meet our needs.
8. Sleep
Some of us, like Britain’s famed prime minister, Margaret Thatcher got genes that only required her to sleep less than 6 hours a day, but that’s, all the more we like, not the norm. It’s not like we can change the amount of sleep our body needs so, the sooner we put up with it, the better we can adjust our life to it.
To peak performance or even just for average performance, we need to ensure, our body gets what it needs. There is no going around and shortcuts to it that won’t hit back at us in one way or the other, and even less as we age.
So, we have set our sleep schedule to fit into the 7-9 hours the human body needs but we can’t get sleep because apparently to get the necessary amount of sleep, we need to go to bed earlier.
Initiation
Although, it’s easy to fall asleep at a later time, it’s not that easy to push our bedtimes to the other way.
We’ve all been there when the clocks were set to one hour early, and we have to go to sleep earlier than we used to. Yet, eventually we get used to the new time schedule, and learn to live with it. There are various techniques that help us fall asleep developed over the years, so there is no shortages of methods such as the military method, 4-7-8 method, simply doing yoga, meditation or breathing activity, but the main principle behind all of them is simply to relax all the muscles and lower the body’s heart rate. Once we achieve that, sleep is imminent.
A good night’s sleep depends on more than just the ability to fall asleep. Timely exercise and the right diet (according to research a breakfast rich in complex carbs improve night sleep).
Snoozing
Snoozing is the worst possible habit, we can establish when it comes to sleeping. Although, it’s tempting to hit the snooze button, and continue dreaming for a couple of more minutes, this half state doesn’t elevate our sleep scores, mood or aid our recovery, yet it takes up our precious time that could be used if not for sleeping, then for anything else.
Napping
Our body also has a natural dip of alertness during the day which can be rapidly solved by a couple of minutes of shut eye.
Unfortunately, napping current status as an energy booster is rather looked down on in favor of more socially acceptable, yet highly addictive and on its own ineffective caffeinated beverages drinking.
Napping during the day is quite beneficial. It’s so good that NASA recommends their astronauts to do so, during their missions in space. Apparently 26 min is the optimal time for a nap. Longer than that has a risk of getting into deep sleep which makes us drowsy when pulled out of it.
Curiously, if we want to get the most of our nap and coffee, we need to use them in tandem. A quick coffee before a not more than 30 min nap will give us the most boost. It may seem strange having coffee before napping but coffee actually needs 30 minutes to do its thing. Anything else is just a placebo effect but even without coffee we’ll end up more energized and ready to focus on tasks with a clean mind.
Sleep cycles.
Once we get into sleep mode, It all comes down to our circadian, aka body’s sleep cycle. We go through various 90 minutes sleep cycles during our sleep sessions, consisting of about 30 min light sleep, 30 min deep sleep and 30 min REM. The best time to get up is during light sleep which leaves us feeling energized and ready to tackle the world. This theory lies behind many smartwatches, smart alarm functions that are designed to wake us up at optimal times, instead of a set schedule. So, when we plan our next 7 – 9-hour sleep session, calculate in the sleep cycles for a refreshing awakening.
9. Exercise
Exercise is the first thing to go on a busy schedule when it should be the last. We don’t like to acknowledge that our body is not really apt for city life. We, as humans, have evolved throughout thousands of years running around day in and day out. Our body has been adapted to this lifestyle and if we stop moving around, like we do, a myriad of health issues come forth to bite us from simple heart attack through depression to simply dying earlier.
Hence if we want a healthy body and balanced, happy life as long as possible, some sort of movement is required on a daily basis. The absolute minimum recommended is 180 minutes of vigorous exercise weekly which sets us up for 30 minutes exercise session for 5 days a week. Adding more to it is always welcomed as it will provide additional benefits but doing less makes our life quite miserable pretty early.
Curiously, a couple of decades ago, exercise was deemed as a particularly harmful activity that only healthy people should do and only in moderation. Hence, the age-old advice of staying in bed when ill.
It took decades for Kenneth H. Cooper, who coined the term “Aerobic exercise” in 1966 to bring his ideas to the masses which propelled the Aerobic boom with Jane Fonda at the forefront of the 80’s.
Since then, countless studies have proven exercise’s positive effect on improving lifestyle, dodging disease, or only plain recovering from illnesses.
If we want to take exercise to the next level, we need a cold to it. Elite athletes have been long using ice baths to aid muscle recovery from the constant wear and tear but only nowadays, it seeps the practice onto the collective conscious of health enthusiastics, and from there onto the common practice.
Cryo fitness is all the rage nowadays. The underlying theory rests on studies that suggest that doing exercise, such as running in cold weather improves the immune response of the body, hence prepares it to combat illnesses better.
This is why we see more and more people running in not season appropriate gear or plunging into waters that previously were only deemed fit for fish.
Only when we give our body what it needs, we can use it to its full potential. Not having time for exercise is just as bad as not providing the necessary nutrition or sleep, and we can’t reasonably expect to bring out the maximum from a body that is not ready for that physically or mentally demanding task.
Not having time to eat healthy, sleep well, and exercise is like not having time to go to the gas station to refill or regularly maintain our cars. We don’t get far without it.
10. Full circle -The Habits
Identifying habits or more precisely habit triggering cues during our daily hustle can be pretty challenging. It doesn’t help that the underlying mechanisms are rooted in fundamental laws of physics, and may be completely against our theological views, or who we think we are. Yet, once we get over the theoretical part, and put things into practice, it is of paramount importance that we create habits that are better than the ones we want to replace.
This may be easier said than done since we are less likely intend to put ourselves into worse situation than we have been already but before purposeful changes are created in our life, it’s advisable to do a bit of research on the subject, ask around on online forums such as Reddit. This way we may not try to quit smoking by sucking on candy.
Other times, we think that we are hungry, and that’s the reason we are again in front of the fridge, trying to find some tasty leftover but most of the time the reasons aren’t rooted in physical hunger but psychological ones such as boredom, stress, fun, or we are simply tired. Making meal plans that contain the right amount of nutrition for our body (protein, healthy fat, fiber) and keeping a meal schedule, will help us eliminate the doubt of psychological hunger. As mentioned, sleeping and more importantly keeping a constant sleep schedule will also be crucial for setting up a healthy routine.
Once we’ve taken care of the body’s needs, we don’t need to fight unwinnable battles, and we are able to focus on the psychological aspects of so-called hunger.
Exploring our habits
To understand our actions, we need to come to terms with our feelings. It’s important to give ourselves time and space to analyze our feelings. When we feel the urgent need to eat something, and find ourselves in a situation where we don’t really want to be, just let that feeling come over the body without giving in. Being hungry is part of life. Once something is accepted as being part of life, it becomes ok. It becomes part of the experience that we don’t need to fight but live through.
Such experiences will give us invaluable insight into the inner workings of our brain that we can use to hone our mental strength.
Of course, this is easier said than done, and it requires a mind that is ready to cope with some rage so maybe it’s better if we don’t start practicing this method when we are stressed out but something more mundane, like we’ve just finished a big task and feel hungry or before starting a big job, we find ourselves packing up on snacks. Snacking as a reward, reason for break time, or procrastination does not happen because we are hungry, and it can be substituted with non-chewable activities.
We can sit out these feelings and ponder the why’s behind them without fear of falling into a dwell of desperation.
Sure enough, this is a bit more advanced technique, and at the beginning of our journey, it’s good enough to admit to ourselves that we aren’t eating because we are actually hungry but because of something else while chewing down our chosen snack.
No rush, changing habits is a long-term game. We can discover the secrets of our mind, one bite at a time.