How to Deal With Mindfulness With Diet and Exercise Sabotage
Today you’re on a diet and you feel like you can’t be stopped … until your coworker hands you a cupcake. It’s just one, you rationalize, absorbing every inch. Feelings of guilt set in. The once promising day was ruined, but only after you sanded down a large pizza and a dozen cookies. Sounds familiar?
If you’ve ever been on a diet, you’ve experienced some variation on this scenario. Soon after, some unpleasant emotions sink in: shame and self-loathing among them. As a coach, the conversation with the dieter above is quite predictable:
Dieter : “I’ve been eating all day. I have no self-control and I feel like shit. “
Me : “You’re not shit. You’re doing great. Let’s talk about what happened? “
Dieter : “I told you I ate muffins … then pizza … I had calories for three days …”
Me : “I mean, what was the trigger? What were you thinking at the time? “
Dieter : “I don’t understand. What do you mean?”
My questions confuse dieters because they only understand one thing: they have failed because they lacked self-control, discipline, willpower, or some other quality that defines morality. However, if the dieter practiced mindfulness , this would not have happened.
Understanding mindfulness
Mindfulness is the deliberate act of being present and focusing your awareness objectively and without judgment. Here’s a quick mindfulness exercise: clear your mind of any thoughts and then take a deep breath. Focus only on the physical sensation of breathing – expanding the lungs, exiting the nostrils, and so on. Other thoughts will cross your mind, but gently bring them back to your breath.
Now examine your mood without judgment. What emotions are you experiencing? You may be worried. In this case, it is natural to immediately switch your thoughts to blame, guilt, or anxiety. However, in this exercise, simply acknowledge your feelings of anxiety. Accept their existence.
As you master this exercise, you will eventually realize that you cannot control the emotions that arise, but you can control your reactions to them. The next time self-sabotage occurs, ask yourself: How are you feeling? Anxious? Guilty? What is your mood at this point? How does your environment affect your feelings? It is imperative that you do this objectively and without judgment, otherwise you will start blaming yourself or others.
Stop sabotage by defining your triggers
Self-sabotage always starts with the trigger. Take overeating, for example. A trigger is a voice in your head that says something like:
“It’s okay to eat another pistachio, Dick. Just another one. “
“You’ve had a great diet week, Dick. Time to celebrate with a pie! “
“Dick, you’ve already broken your diet for one cupcake. It’s pizza time. “
Self-sabotage is never worth it. Think about it. Has there ever been a time when you obeyed a trigger and ended up getting better from it? Probably no. Subsequently, you probably experienced a kind of moral flaw – the inability to exercise the willpower to reject your desires.
But this is not true. The reality is that our willpower is limited and mistakes don’t mean you are a bad person; it means that you are human. The next time you feel like you are about to be sabotaged, follow these steps:
- Examine your trigger. Think about rationalization and answer the next question: when you were inferior to him before, did the result improve you? Probably no.
- Use mindfulness to determine your feelings before the event. Maybe even before your coworker handed you a cupcake, you had holiday feelings. Then you felt pressure after being offered the cupcake and guilt when you ate it. When these emotions begin to manifest, explore them objectively and without judgment. You might want to write this pattern down for future reference.
- Realize that you are not your emotions. Think about the last time you felt this emotional pattern – you probably had the same urge, right? This means that it is not a moral flaw if you have the urge to eat, drink, or watch The Bachelor. Rather, it is inevitable, triggered by the emotions and events that led to it. You cannot control your senses. However, you are responsible for what you do with them.
- Identify the root cause of your emotions. You may be stressed at work because of a deadline. Understand that your need for a snack or a drink is due to the deadline. Find out what you need to do to fix the underlying problem.
- Distract yourself with something else and focus on what a great future you will feel. Go for a walk or find a relatively harmless vice, such as playing computer games. Focus on how good you will feel the day after successfully separating your emotions from your actions. Know that because of this victory, you are less likely to sabotage yourself in the future.
You may fail on the first few tries. If so, that’s okay. Show some compassion for yourself. You wouldn’t be mad at yourself if you fell when you learned to ride a bike, would you? Fitness is a skill and you won’t stop overeating overnight.
Instead, pay attention to exactly what went wrong and fix it the next time the self-sabotage occurs. One of the most powerful feelings is winning an event with mindfulness , not willpower or self-control. You will find that your sabotage is not a moral flaw; you just haven’t removed the training wheels yet.