How To Eat Healthy Consistently: And Enjoy It
Recently someone asked me WHAT to do when you don’t feel MOTIVATED to eat healthy or stick to the things you said you’d do… When you don’t WANT to.
First, here’s what I want you to know about motivation… It's fleeting. It was there when you DECIDED to eat healthy and that was pretty much it. It's not something that lasts and It’s not something you will ALWAYS have. .
It's something that you have in a moment, most often when something big is happening: like a birthday or new years or something bad or big happens.
Does that make sense?
We get this woosh of dopamine and determination around a certain goal, and please, this doesn’t have to be about eating healthy! It can be about changing your job or working on your relationship or whatever.
Understand that you will feel motivated in a big way, and then NATURALLY that motivation will disappear.
As a side note, this is one of the most amazing reasons to work with a coach! Your coach will help you learn how to be accountable to yourself, continuously remind you WHY your goals are important to you, and help you stay committed to yourself for so long that whatever change you’re trying to implement will become natural and normal.
Even just knowing that it’s NORMAL that your motivation will dissipate can be helpful, because then when it does you don’t think anything is wrong with YOU – you just know you need to have a plan and it’s all just part of the journey.
So you wanted to eat healthy and then it got hard and you no longer wanted to eat healthy.
THIS IS NORMAL.
You’re still doing it right if this happens to you. No drama.
But what are you going to do about it?!
Most of us try to hold out and then feel like shit about ourselves when we don’t make it long. That’s not fantastic because what often happens is we then feel really bad about about OURSELVES and thnk we’re total shite at eating healthy and we’re just completely out of control so f*ck it all anyway! Right?
Here’s what we’re going to do instead…
First, when we make a plan to eat healthy (or exercise or go back to school or read more books or whatever.) we need to know that while we’re motivated NOW we won’t always be… and that’s normal.
So instead of trying to ride the motivation train into the sunset of endless kale smoothies and flaxseed energy balls, we’re going to PLAN for when it gets hard.
What To Do When You Don’t WANT To Eat Healthy:
GOAL CLARITY:
You need to actually get clear on your goal and think about it in detail. Really understand the parameters and plan. This is essential for execution without buckets of mind drama.
If you try to be vague about your goals you will have a MUCH harder time making any kind of progress.
GET EXCITED ABOUT IT:
you want to think of how awesome this will be for you and the people in your life. Will it help you be more productive at work? Will you feel proud of yourself? Will you feel more confident? Will you be setting a good example for the people in your life? Will you feel sexier and want to make sweet love more? Will you get to wear clothes you love? Will you feel more like yourself? Will you have more energy? Will you feel better when you go on that vacation? Go deep!
GET CLEAR ON YOUR WHY:
After you’ve spent some time feeling jazzed up, start to think about WHY this is really important to you. Why in the actual F would you give up your weird drinkypoo with 17 teaspoons of sugar in it? WHY do you want to leave a good example for your kids? WHY is this important to you?
You need to go deep on this one because this is the database you’ll be accessing when things get hard later.
It also happens to be a natural source of the magical MOTIVATION!
So, WHY the hell are you doing this?
I know this seems a lot like getting excited, but getting excited is about getting excited and knowing your WHY is about doing an honest excavation of why this is DEEPLY important to YOU.
The more work you do on these the more likely you are to succeed at becoming a person who constantly eats healthy, or whatever it is you’re doing.
PLAN AND PREPARE:
Plan for when you KNOW you will run out of motivation. This is a complete game changer. DECIDE AHEAD OF TIME what you’re going to do and think when you don’t want to do the hard thing anymore.
Good gawd, if I knew this was a thing when I was first trying to change my diet or become a person who ran or worked out or owned a business or WHATEVER, it would have been so dang helpful.
When we plan for it, it doesn’t always mean we will do things perfectly, but you will be blown away by how much this helps.
For example: I always have my clients come up with 3 or so emergency healthy meal options, and be prepared for them at all times.
We do this so when we get home from work late and didn't have time in the morning to come up with a plan and we’re tired AF and we don’t want to cook and we hate everything and everyone – we have a PLAN.
We don’t have to rely on our motivation or willpower and we don’t need to stress out, because we have a plan.
This stops us from needing to grab fast food on the way home because we know our kitchen is stocked with eggs, beans, salsa and a miraculously ripe avocado… or whatever it is for you.
You are not messing around when you pull this badassery out, and let me tell you what happens when you do this – YOU realise YOU are a badass and YOU are not messing around! And that sweet love, is how we build self confidence.
Confidence is an action NOT a FEELING.
Changing how we eat is hard because there are a million reasons we eat, and very few of them have anything to do with actually hunger and nourishment.
NO PLACE FOR PERFECTION:
Next you need to know that when you don’t do healthy perfectly, it means NOTHING about you or your goals or your progress or anything.
It just means you’re a human being in a world where literally NOTHING is perfect, so you don’t need to be perfect either, you just need to learn what lead to your choices.
So you messed up and ate a bag of chips and dip for dinner… Oh well, that sh*t means nothing about where you’re going!
Because babe, health doesn't happen inside a vacuum! It happens because you spend a LIFETIME constantly putting effort into being a healthy person.
Ok?
The concept of needing to do things perfectly comes from diet culture and it is RIPE with shame and guilt and making women feel out of control and unworthy. It’s built on women hating themselves and their body… I DO NOT support diet culture.
I DO support eating healthy and taking care of your body so you feel like a goddess though.
CURIOSITY:
The only thing we need to do when we eat outside of our goals unintentionally, all we need to do is get curious WHY we did it.
What happened that we ended up eating a bag of chips for dinner? What happened before we ate a bag of cookies on our way home from work? What led to eating the entire pizza? What was going on?
Becoming aware of WHY we’re eating, and understanding that it’s often unrelated to being hungry or being unprepared is CRUCIAlL for creating change in our lives.
This applies to eating healthy, or drinking less wine or building a business or reconnecting to our spouse instead of just watching shows or scrolling instagram all the time.
What led us to the place of default or detachment or disconnection?
Developing self awareness is the most important ingredient in creating change in your life.
DO IT ANYWAY:
When your brain tells you I don’t WANT the salad I made for myself today and I WANT a doughnut instead you tell your brain: I know, duhhh, but we’re going to eat this stupid salad first anyway.
Then, if we reeeeally still want the doughnut, we’ll eat it after our stupid salad.
We need to DEVELOP grit when it comes to changing our eating habits, because as I mentioned before, there’s a LOT of reasons we eat that have nothing to do with nourishment or hunger.
Our brain will ALWAYS resist change, avoid pain, and seek pleasure, and will often have us giving up on ourselves quicker than you could even imagine. Especially if it doesn't have a lot of data showing that it’s NORMAL for us to show up for ourselves.
I love you, you’re doing amazing, you’ve got this.
If you want to learn more about working with me as a 1:1 client please contact me at gwen@gwenjohnson.ca or fill out the application below:
I empower women and caregivers to prioritise themselves and create the life they want.
Often this looks like going from feeling neglected, like hot garbage, unhappy and unclear on what makes them feel happy, stuck doing everything for everyone, resentful, lacking self confidence or self worth…
To feeling fantastic, losing excess weight, reconnecting with themselves and their joys. Building boundaries naturally and easily, and feeling confident and happy and excited about their future.
It’s the best time.
