March 10th, 2008
Removing Bad Food Habits
In one of my nutrition accountability groups I have a client who is training for a fitness competition. This is the most difficult goals she has ever attempted and she is a powerful woman who has accomplished many things in her life (so far). After she lost a significant amount of weight for simple (I don’t say “simple” lightly) weight loss, she then decided to compete and needed to put weight and muscle back on. This meant gaining weight after months of losing it. That in itself was a mental block for her. Every day she was frustrated because she was putting on weight and was fighting within herself as to why she was doing this.
After a couple months, she then needed to “clean it up” and cut out the bad foods, excess calories, excess salt and increase her protein. This is where she is now at as I write this. Now she goes out and gets plain chicken, no seasoning, has egg whites 3x a day, doesn’t eat fruit and drinks an enormous amount of water. (she’s relishing the old gain weight days!). Now, she is losing weight, but fat…not muscle because of her workout routine and diet. However, every time she goes out, she fights the bland food eating because it’s so hard.
I’m telling you this because today we talked about attitude and removing the habit of resistance and creating the habit of acceptance and gratefulness. She committed many months ago to compete, but what she didn’t commit to was enjoying the process, so for a long time she’s been frustrated because of the difficulty of the task.
Accepting the process and creating a gratefulness around what she has accomplished so far was an awakening for her. You see she looks fabulous…better than most women I know in my industry, however she was always waiting for the next phase and wasn’t living in the moment.
So often with our health, we are wishing for something more, different, smaller, bigger, anything, but being grateful for what we are doing NOW to be our healthiest. I hope you can read this and take a moment to thank your spirit, mind and body for where you are at …even if you want to be somewhere else in a month!
Tammy Parkinson
