Alright! Now that you’re a mental ninja with the pain tolerance of infinity, it’s time to stack on our next nutritional habit.
But first, lets do an honest evaluation of our performance so far.
- Have you done any exploration inwards to look more closely at who you are and what you value?
- Have you consistently been practicing eating slowly?
- Have you done your best to eat mindfully, without distractions whenever possible?
- Have you found a cue to remind you to take one deep Jedi Breath?
- Did you find any discomfort last week that you decided to sit with for a bit before making a decision on how to correct it?
- Have you used the scale of 1-10 on any situation or discomfort that might have seemed catastrophic in order to put it into perspective?
- Have you made it to all of your workouts that were reasonably possible to attend?
If you answered yes to all the questions above then WOW!! You, my friend, are an alien! An incredibly disciplined alien on your way to mastering any task you set your mind to. Respect.
For the rest of us humans, no need to worry. Even if you haven’t tried a single thing on this list, you can, and you will create change and get your desired results as long as you are READY and WILLING to do so now.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by this list, simply scale it down. For example, if you are struggling with eating slowly then scale it down to something you are completely confident you can do. Instead of thinking you have to eat slowly at 100% of your meals maybe you could just try one meal per day. Heck, you can even start with just trying it for one meal this week!
We want you to be so confident that you can execute the action step that it is almost insulting.
Scale back any suggestions that I give until you are at least a 9 or 10 (out of 10) confident you can do it.
So.. what’s our next nutritional habit?
Appetite Awareness; Stop at 80% full.
It is so important for us to feel when we want to eat, need to eat, and have eaten enough (or too much).
Thinking and external rules aren’t enough. To maintain long-term wellness and a healthy body composition, we need to be aware of appetite, physical hunger, and satiety cues.
If you want to lose fat, then this habit is for you! Start paying attention to your physical cues and stop eating when you are “just satisfied” or “80% full” instead of “full” or “stuffed”.
This habit definitely requires a sacrifice and some tolerance for the discomfort of not filling completely full.
It is perfectly normal and okay to morn this loss. All change requires loss and discomfort, perhaps even grief. It’s important to allow that to happen first.
If you struggle to feel and understand your physical cues, first keep working on mastering the slow eating; this has a profound effect on our awareness of satiety cues. You can also try to use touch cues and/or a couple of Jedi Breaths to sense stomach sensations. Or even make a list of hunger/fullness sensations.
Here is a food log you can use in order to track your adherence to the habit. All you’ve got to do is give a brief description of what you ate and then check off whether or not you stoped at 80% full.
If you can get at least 80% of your meals checked “yes”, then you will see significant changes in your body comp.
Stop here for a moment. Pay attention, because this is important.
Even if you never do anything else to improve your health other than learning to eat slowly, mindfully, and to the right level of satiety, then you will achieve more results than most individuals will ever do.
Learn to eat slowly and mindfully, and to sense in to your physical cues, and you will transform your health, your body, and your performance.
