The secret to ending your on-again-off-again healthy eating cycle is mindset work

Are you stuck in an on-again-off-again healthy eating cycle? It starts with a declaration: you’re going to eat healthy from now on! You come up with a plan. You throw out all the unhealthy food and buy all the healthy food. You feel so excited and ready to be healthy! But when that 2 p.m. slump hits or when you get a craving for something sweet at 10 p.m. you can’t help but give in. Then you feel like a failure. You beat yourself up and give up on healthy eating for a few days, weeks or months. And then you begrudgingly get back on the healthy train and try to do it all over again.

Mama, I have a serious question for you: how’s that working for you? Is it serving you to try, make one tiny mistake, feel like a total failure, take 10 steps back and then try all over again? 

If this never-ending cycle of healthy eating and unhealthy eating isn’t working for you, if it isn’t serving you, then it’s time to be done with it. 

But I want to clear one thing up before we go any further. Just because you’re in this cycle, just because you fell off the wagon doesn’t mean you’re a failure. Mama, you’re not a failure. You’re not! You just don’t know the secret to getting off the hamster wheel, losing the weight and keeping it off for good.

Here’s the secret…

It’s about the food, but it’s not really about the food

When you’re trying to lose weight, you focus so much on the food. You’ve been taught that there are good foods for weight loss, like salads! And bad foods, like carbs. - Let’s not even talk about the irony that salads are carbs.

We get so stuck in the good vs bad; can vs. can’t; should vs. shouldn’t that we basically set ourselves up for failure!

When you are stuck in the mindset of I can’t have that. That’s bad for me or I’m bad if I eat that. I shouldn’t eat that even though I reaaaalllllllly want it. You will never stick to a diet! Living in that kind of scarcity mindset will never get you the results you want.

You have to dive deeper. Why do you think burgers are bad? Who told you that the only thing that’s healthy for you are salads? Is that person/website a good resource? Do you understand how protein, fat and carbs work? Do you know how to fuel your body for the life you want to live?

Until you realize that what you eat is only a small part of the problem, you’ll continue to stay exactly where you’re at.

Mental health is crucial to weight loss

Your mindset is the piece of the “losing weight” puzzle that you’ve been missing. You give up the battle when you let your mind get away from you. 

Working on your mindset daily sets you up for success. Whether it’s your nutrition, your relationships or your work, if you want to succeed, you have to look at how your mindset, your thoughts and your feelings, are affecting your results.

How you think about food, exercise, and most importantly, yourself will determine if you stick with healthy living or give it up. I’m going to dive deeper into these three areas so you can understand how they’re affecting your weight loss. But I want you to grab a pen and paper and journal out your answers to these three questions. This will give you an idea of where you need to start.

How do you think and feel about food?

We already talked about good and bad foods and how that philosophy can set you up for failure because, let’s be honest, no one likes being told what they can or cannot do. 

Start learning about your food mindset by writing down what diets you have done in the past and what they taught you. 

Second, and this is going to be the big, important question: Is that principle, or lesson, serving you now? 

I did the paleo diet for almost three years and never lost a pound. Was that diet serving me? Not really. It wasn’t giving me the results I wanted. But, I did learn about whole foods and was able to incorporate more whole foods into my diet because of it. So when I decided to move on from Paleo, I took what served me - eating whole foods - and left behind what didn’t serve me - eating too much fat and not enough carbs.

Another important area to look at is who taught you about food and what was their relationship with it?

Most of us learned about food from our families, especially our mothers. My mom has been a yo-yo dieter her whole life. I fell into the same pattern when I gained weight because that’s what I knew! But it didn’t serve me. I hated feeling sick from overeating and then feeling run down from not eating enough.

I had to go out and learn about nutrition on my own so that I could find a system that served me. You can do that too. You don’t need to keep holding onto things that aren’t serving you just because that’s the only way you know! 

How do you think and feel about exercise?

When it comes to exercising, do you have to do it or do you get to do it?

I love hitting the gym, going on walks, riding bikes, I love it all. I was a three-sport collegiate athlete, so exercise is something I enjoy doing. But I know that a lot of mamas don’t enjoy it.

A lot of mamas feel like it’s another chore they have to do.

If you fall into the “have to do it” category, I want you to try and figure out what doesn’t feel good about exercise.

One reason might be that you feel like you have to do a certain kind of exercise for it to count or to lose weight. But what if you flipped that around and found something that you actually enjoyed? How would you feel about it then?

You don’t have to run marathons. You don’t have to become a Crossfitter. You just have to get up and move. How you move your body is entirely up to you. Because the best exercise - the one that will make you drop the weight - is the one you’ll show up for. Nothing else is going to work.

When you find something that you love doing, you’ll stop saying “I have to” and you’ll start saying “I get to.” That simple change in words will create a huge change in how you feel about exercising. When you get to do something, you’re excited about it. You want to do it. It’s no longer a chore. That’s the mindset shift you need to make to enjoy exercising.

How do you think and feel about yourself?

I saved the best for last because how you think and feel about yourself might be the number one reason you aren’t where you want to be in your health.

Do you love yourself right now? Do you believe that you are capable of being the healthiest, happiest version of yourself?

I could widdle you down to your pre-baby weight, your college weight, your high school weight but if you don’t believe that you are amazing and worthy right now, it won’t matter how much weight you lose. 

Until you recognize that your worth doesn’t lie in what you eat or your pants size, you’re never going to feel good in your body.

Mama, it’s time to do the hard work. It’s time to look at what’s going on in your mind and what’s stopping you from accomplishing your goals. It’s hard, emotional work to do this. I know. I’ve done it too! But, it’s absolutely necessary if you want to lose weight and keep it off.

I can help you through this.

Inside the Macros Made Easy program we unravel the thoughts and feelings you have about food and about yourself so that you not only lose weight but also let go of the thoughts that have held you back. 

I have you read books and give you access to a mindset coach so that you heal your mental health and your physical health. I believe that the whole mama needs to be healed and cared for, not just one part of her.

Schedule a free discovery call if you’re ready to take care of your physical and mental health.

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