You may know that I teach a few classes at Miramar College. I work with students who are interested in pursuing a career as a fitness professional. In my class this week we had a really good conversation on motivation that I thought you might enjoy hearing.
I have touched on this topic before but if you are planning on getting through your diet using willpower you are setting yourself up for failure. Yes strong willpower can help you in your journey but it should not be counted on.
If you have an issue with your sweet tooth, what happens when you keep a box of cookies or chocolate in the house? It is not a matter of willpower. You are going to eat it at some point. It is just a matter of when.
Instead of focusing on willpower, try and shape your environment to force you to be successful. What I mean is, there are things you can do that will force you to make the right choice, or at least make the better choice the easier option. For example if you don’t keep any cookies in the house you can’t eat any of them.
Here are a few things you can do to help shape your path to be easier and help make the healthier choice simple.
- Eliminate junk food from the house. If your are really craving it you can always go out a get a single serving, but do not keep it laying around.
- Keep things you want regularly easily in reach. When Emily and I started to set up our kitchen we had put all of our vitamins in a cabinet above the fridge. You need a step stool to get to it so I found myself rarely ever taking them. We moved them to be better accessible and now it is more likely I will take them each day.
- Choose your friends wisely. It is a fact that you will be influenced by your friends. If your friends are overweight you probably will be overweight. If your social engagements tend to be centered around eating out, try other activities you can enjoy together that do not. Try hiking, rock climbing, card games, movies, book clubs…
- Put your workouts in your schedule. Treat is as any other work appointment. Once it is set you should not schedule anything else to make you miss it. Having an alert on your phone is a nice reminder too.
- Keep work out clothes in your car. It is frutstrating to hear that a client missed a workout because they forgot to bring clothes or shoes. With extra clothes you will always be covered.
- For two weeks only eat meals using side dishes. We have been accustomed to larger and larger serving sizes. Retrain your brain to see what a real serving size should look like. You should have no problem fitting a protein, veggies/fruit, fat, and carb serving on a side dish.
These are just a few ideas to get you started. But for you it could be something different. Just think what is one thing that seems to keep sabotaging you to not stay on track? See if there is anything you can do to help minimize the impact of that to help you avoid relapse.
Mike Deibler MS, CSCS
San Diego Premier Training