You can picture it. You’ve had a stressful meeting or day at work, the challenges just keep on coming, but that bar of chocolate might just do it, if just for a while. Except that it doesn’t does it? The stress is still there afterwards and you now feel worse for eating said chocolate bar and your pockets, in more than just the literal sense, aren’t thanking you either.
That’s where I was almost 6 weeks ago. For the first time in my life I was borderline ‘overweight’ for my BMI. That hurt. That really hurt. And to make matters worse, my clothes were getting tighter by the day and I just felt, well, really self conscious about my weight. And in this ever encircling feeling of stress-eat-repeat, I felt like I would never get out of it.
I thought that it was all my fault. After all, apart from maybe a few years at the beginning of my life, it was ultimately me that was shoving food in my mouth. But what if we aren’t entirely to blame? What if daily life was actually an onslaught of all the tricks the trade use to make you want to eat something and want to keep on eating it? What if the average person who eats a ‘Westernized Diet’ has to expend more conscious effort to eat healthily than to eat the status quo?
At this point I kind of felt that because I now knew what was happening, it levelled the playing fields and set out the battle I had before me. I could now learn and devise a strategy to overcome what had literally been conditioned into me. And what is strategy? The art of leading an army. I just needed the right army, with the right skills and some well thought out tactical manoeuvres.
For me the process really started by reading James Clear’s Atomic Habits. I’ve heard others say “it changed my life” and I was like ‘nah,’ ‘pfft’ I doubt it will do the same to me, but it set the seed that would grow and hopefully, eventually, bloom. My advice is to commit, prepare, follow through and trust the process. I cannot stress the last part enough. When you are setting habits for making change, which both Second Nature (use code ‘dandelion’ to get 50% off your first month) and Atomic Habits are built around, then the daily grind is what you need to overcome. It’s not about having the goal, it’s about living the goal. Overcome the daily grind and show up, day in day out and success will come. It’s also about realising that absolutely no-one is perfect, but what matters is that you get back up and push on. That’s what sets successful people apart from those who don’t succeed. You only have to look at how a child learns to understand that as we get older we give up easier.
So, how did it work for me? Firstly I was ready to take the change and take my army to battle – I was committed. I looked at what I didn’t want to be and how I didn’t want to feel and that was it. The very same day i started Second Nature I told myself I would eat junk food no longer. I prepared; every week I meal plan, I read and importantly I have a back-up plan. Every day I follow through and do what I prepared and committed to do, and ultimately I have to trust the process because like most things, the goal doesn’t happen overnight. But the feeling of success can do. It can happen every minute of everyday.
You’ll see a lot of people saying that all you need to do is eat less than you burn in energy each day. Whilst that maybe loosely true, it’s just not that simple because we are complex human beings, and what you eat defines you more than how much. If the much maligned Gillian McKeith could be mentioned, she was right. Eating three balanced salads a day is not the same as eating the calorie equivalent in fast food. Whilst Second Nature won’t ask you to take a look at your bathroom output, it’s one thing you might notice improves…..
As I learnt to trust the process, that’s when I also noticed the weight dropping off, the clothes a little less tighter and aspects of my mind feeling less of a burden. By trusting the process I feel like I am basically breaking out from the addiction of sugar, not by omitting sugar completely but by breaking the cycle of associations that trigger the ‘need’ for something sweet. And if it’s one thing that sugar does, it’s cloud your judgement. I’ve even started my business again (The Posted Stamp) as I’ve now seen it in a different light brought on by a certain mental clarity. I have less headaches (also helped by regular iron and magnesium supplements) and feel so much less tired during the day; I am in control.
And when something pops up that makes me stop and have to think for a moment; ‘would you like a piece cake?’ I take a breath and I go back to that trust in the process and say no, not today, because my goal is waving at me and I have committed to get there. What I can’t get over though, is that I have not even wanted to eat junk food and that feeling came like it was overnight. It just doesn’t speak to me anymore and even if it was, I’m not listening.
I’m not promising success, but I joined the affiliate program at Second Nature because I really believe in what they are doing; a scientific and habit-based approach to diet and lifestyle change that is designed to be sustainable well beyond the initial 12 week program. Therefore it gives me great pleasure that I can offer 50% off your first month when you sign up and put DANDELION (upper or lower case it doesn’t matter) in the code section. Second Nature changed how my friend and I think about food and began a new path for the future.
Until next time…
Disclaimer: I’ll earn a small commission for everyone who signs up to the program, but I would never recommend something I don’t believe in myself.
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