Slips...why do they happen? What does it say about me? What does it say about them?
So...eating Paleo isn't always as easy as I wish it would be. It IS easy BUT...sometimes I just want an Oreo, mac & cheese, Chick Fil A nuggets...and then what? regret! Because I'm making progress slip away. Coach says, "You can't exercise your way past a poor diet" (I hear his voice in my head a lot when I really need it). So, what does it say about me when I slip? It means, I don't have to be Paleo 100% of the time...may 80-90% of the time...but I can't keep overestimating the size of that 10-20% wiggle room.
Eating Paleo can be tough because of them. Who are they? They are the people who say, "Oh...you know want some, just have a taste...it won't hurt anything..."
Thank you.
My deep thought of the day.
Slips - here's a technical answer, which may prove useful to consider when sorting out why you make choices you "don't want to make."
ReplyDeleteYou are the rider of an elephant. The elephant goes where it wants to. If you ride it skillfully, train it well, it goes where you want it to, because you've trained it to want what you want. But you can't kid yourself that you actually choose where the elephant goes. It goes where it will. Hopefully, no mouse runs cross your path ....
Likewise, you unconscious mind goes for the "whatever non-paleo choice" because it associates pleasure to that choice. Why? Suppose there have been a 1000 times in the past when you've been on a regular diet that your blood sugars have been low - this is a metabolic emergency, if they go too low, you fall over. Most metabolic emergencies generate discomfort (aka pain); foggy head, low energy, HUNGER! So you eat something, and the UCM rapidly learns that if you eat something sweet/high carb blood sugar comes back to normal rapidly. In short, the UCM learns "when in pain, eat sweet." That lesson is reinforced the other 900 times after the UCM figures this out.
This will be a hard association to break. That's why, if you are hungry, it's important to eat something, but it has to be non-sweet, non-carb, something for which there's no guilt in the aftermath, no damage to your metabolism. In this way, you reduce the association between "hunger-sweet-relief from pain". Over time.
IOW, discipline beats willpower. Willpower isn't squat when it comes to controlling the elephant.
The other side of the equation - when the elephant does something right - helps you eat what you know you should eat - MARK THE OCCASION!! CELEBRATE!! The UCM does not notice unless you do the equivalent of TYPING LIKE THIS!! Emotion gets the UCM's attention. Emotions tells the UCM "THIS IS IMPORTANT, PAY ATTENTION!!" If every good meal eaten paleo is "that wasn't too bad" you are not teaching the elephant. You need fist pumps after a good day, you need high friggin fives when you notice how outstanding it is to be hunger free, you need to spike the damned ball when you mark another inch of tape off the hips. You need to dislocate your shoulder patting yourself on the back when you feel the impulse to eat an orea and then don't because you know you'll feel better if you make a different choice, a pattern breaking choice, a liberty creating choice, a choice for Star not for the Star of years past that needed a treat to feel better.
DO YOU READ ME PRIVATE?!?! ;-)
It's a two part formula for success - eat differently to support normal, healthy metabolic function. Use your mind to convince your UCM that the new choices are about feeling BETTER not about restriction or denial or deprivation. You eat this way because it feels BETTER.
That's why it is essential to connect with why you want to make this change. If you can tap into that driver it will help you, it's the same thing as teaching an elephant to want what you want.
Health? Yes. Getting out the perpetual struggle about body composition? Hell yes, that's no way to live. Having more life, and a more abundant life, a better life experience by feeding yourself well? Yes, that works for me.
So which of these answers can you generate some real, stand up and raise a fist emotion about? Some "You better believe I'm getting some of that" energy and passion?
That's what it takes. That and the willingness to get up, dust off, and get back on the horse.
Which is what you are doing, stay with it!!