7 Mindset Shifts to Make Changing Your Eating Habits Easier

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Full Episode Transcript:

5 Mindset Shifts to Make Changing Your Eating Habits Easier

If you’re having trouble changing your eating habits effectively, it very well may be how you’re thinking.

But great news, you can get awareness of what you’re thinking, see how it’s affecting you negatively, and make a shift to produce better results. Which is what I’m helping you with in this episode.

Last week, I did an episode on seven powerful mindset shifts and today I’m doing 5 mindset shifts to make changing your eating habits easier.

So, our mindset has a lot to do with our results in life. That’s because your thoughts collectively make up your mindset.

A positive mindset does not mean that every single thought you have is positive. Important to know.

You have a human brain just like I do, which just means naturally you will not have just positive thoughts.

In fact, our human brains can sometimes be very heavy on the negative thoughts, which is survival related.

We’re always looking for the negative to protect ourselves. We’re looking for the dangers or what we perceive as potential dangers.

It is really good practice though to have awareness of negative thoughts that may be leading to negative results.

It’s also good to understand how you can shift a negative thought into a more positive one and see how that would most likely result in something positive.

So I’m going to give you 5 common thoughts about eating habits that are negative and don’t make you feel very good, and then ultimately lead to negative results.

I’m also going to give you a way that you can shift that thought to make you feel better.

And the good news is, if you feel better, then you will typically do more of the behaviors that will get you the result that you want.

Okay, so the first one is “I have to eat healthy all the time.”  A lot of people are thinking this thought when they’re trying to lose weight or change their eating habits.

The words I have to can very much make it feel like a chore. Also eating healthy all the time, can give this feeling of needing to be perfect. And perfection is so difficult to attain, which means that if we don’t attain it we are left feeling disappointed or maybe even something like shame or frustration. Not good feelings.

You can just try this thought on right now for yourself and see how it feels. Think to yourself I have to eat healthy all the time. How does that make you feel in your body? Can you name the emotion or just describe how it feels? If you’re having a difficult time doing that, does it feel good or does it feel not so good?

And if you’re not feeling good because of this thought or you’re feeling like it’s a chore or that you have to be perfect, do you think it’s likely that you’re going to end up being successful with changing your eating habits permanently?

Especially if you’re looking at it as a perfectionist and feeling like you’re failing if you don’t eat perfectly healthy all the time. That can lead to just giving up. That’s that all or nothing mentality.

So the mindset shift for this would be “I get to decide what I fuel my body with.”

This gives you all the power back, because it’s your decision rather than feeling like you have to do something that you don’t want to do. So it’s much more empowering.

Also, it takes that whole perfectionism vibe out of it.

I also like this one because it’s very deliberate. You’re the one deciding what you eat. Food doesn’t have the control period you have the control.

The next one is “I have terrible eating habits.”  I know some of you have said this aloud or to yourself as if it’s just you reporting the news. As if it’s 100% truth, but it’s just a thought.

It’s your opinion about your eating habits. It may not even be an accurate opinion. You might have just told yourself this one time and then your brain keeps repeating it. But how does that thought make you feel?

Probably an emotion that doesn’t feel good. Possibly even making you feel terrible.

And if you feel that way, does that give you energy to do the things you need to do to get better eating habits?

Maybe at first, but that never lasts. You might get that quick burst of energy, but having that underlying thought will always end up self-sabotaging.

There will always be part of you that identifies as someone who has terrible eating habits and it’ll be so much harder to change when you’re thinking that way.

So a shift for this one is “I have eating habits I’d like to change.” This creates more of a feeling of desire or maybe even motivation.

Desire to change those eating habits for whatever your deeper reasons are. Motivation to change your eating habits, also for whatever deeper reasons that you have.

This thought will also more likely spring you into action. It just feels different in your body when you’re experiencing an emotion of desire or motivation.

Whereas, if you’re thinking “I have terrible eating habits” making you feel ashamed or just feeling terrible, that can keep you stuck and not doing anything about it.

The next one is “eating makes me happy.” OK, so I know some of you right now are like but it does. No, eating does not make you happy. Eating increases dopamine, which provides a very short term feeling of pleasure, but this is not to be confused with true happiness.

So when you are telling yourself this thought, you are just keeping yourself in the cycle of eating to try to feel happy. It never actually makes you feel truly happy, so you’re constantly just chasing this feeling of happiness.

And instead, you’re strengthening that eating habit of eating not because you’re hungry, but because you’re trying to fill some sort of void or avoid an uncomfortable emotion.

So this thought for sure, eating makes me happy, will keep you stuck in an unhealthy cycle.

A shift that you can have for this one is just making yourself aware that eating is only providing that temporary dopamine hit. So something like “eating provides short term pleasure, but not true happiness.”

And I’d also like you to consider that eating to try to make yourself feel happy is actually harming your emotional and physical health, which will result in more unhappiness.

The next one is I can’t stop eating. That may just be eating in general, or it may be eating a specific food or type of food. This thought relinquishes all control. This will make you feel very disempowered or out of control.

And if you’re thinking this thought I can’t stop eating, what do you think is going to end up happening? You’ll keep eating. And that’s not because you can’t actually stop. It’s because you’re telling yourself you can’t stop.

It’ll create a feeling such as disempowerment or feeling out of control period when you feel those feelings, what ends up happening is you keep Reaching for the food and putting in your mouth.

Instead try this thought on for size. “I may want to keep eating but i can stop anytime because I have control over my arms and mouth.”

Seriously though, right? You have control over your arms and your mouth. Therefore, you can stop eating anytime. It might feel like you can’t, but you can. I promise you.

The thoughts and the feelings may be making it more difficult for you, or the specific type of food like candy, but you can still do it.

Do you know why, because you can do hard things. And it’s really only hard, just because you’re not in the practice of doing it a different way yet. And if you feel like you can’t do it alone, that’s exactly what I help people with. I am here for you.

Book a free consultation with the link in the episode description, and I can learn more about what exactly you’re struggling with, and tell you exactly what the solutions would be for you with your specific challenges.

People are so much more empowered, regardless of whether or not they end up deciding to work with me or not to help them reach those deepest desires That are the true reasons why they want to break their bad eating habits and lose weight.

All right, and the last mindset shift I want to offer you is for the thought “I shouldn’t have eaten that much.”

This one doesn’t sound that bad, but the main reason why I wanted to present this one to you is because of the words, “I shouldn’t have.”

So really the thought could be anything. “I shouldn’t have eaten the cookies.” “I shouldn’t have had the third glass of wine.” “I shouldn’t have spent $500 on new clothes when I have clothes with the tags still on them in the closet.”

Maybe you truly feel that you shouldn’t have (fill in the blank), but thinking this thought will make you feel a certain way which will then determine your next actions or inactions.

Often, a thought like “I shouldn’t have eaten that much” produces a feeling like guilt, shame, or disappointment.

Those feelings certainly don’t feel good, and they often keep you stuck. Sometimes, you may recall that you didn’t feel good and you want to avoid that feeling, so you change your action for next time.

But that’s usually not enough motivation to have you continue doing the right actions.

So instead, shifting this to “I ate more than I intended. What did I learn for next time?” is a lot more productive. You’re acknowledging what you did. But then you’re getting curious and asking yourself what can be improved for next time.

So maybe you discover that you overate due to the fact that you were not paying attention to how much you were eating because you were watching TV at the same time.

What you learned from that is maybe that next time you eat, you should not be watching TV or doing anything else that might be distracting while you eat.

So you’re problem solving instead of just shaming yourself. Way more likely to then produce the results you really want if you’re able to problem solve and do it differently next time.

Alright, that’s what I have for you on 5 mindset shifts to make changing your eating habits easier. Thanks for listening, take care and I’ll talk with you next week.