Undieting in Real Life - Part 1
Time To Take Stock
It’s important to really feel where you are right now and record it. Period.
Sometimes your body’s symptoms change so slowly that it’s hard to see the improvement. But, in my job, I meet with my clients every few weeks or few months and I get to witness the huge changes that happen. It’s harder for my clients to see the same change because they’re inside their bodies every day and it’s hard to feel gradual changes.
You can be your own nutritionist by taking stock right now. Grab a notebook or open up a note on your phone and write down your ratings for each item. Repeat this process again at the end of the month :)
Rate Your Energy
If 10 was the most energetic you’ve ever been, where are you sitting on average right now?
If you’re at least a 4/10, keep going.
IMPT - If you’re a 1, 2, or 3 out of 10…well, you probably won’t be surprised to hear that you’re TIRED! And, you’re probably in burnout or adrenal fatigue.
This isn’t your average tiredness, feeling this tired makes it very difficult to get through each day. If you’re in this spot, this masterclass isn’t for you. Move to the Recovering From Burnout Masterclass instead. It will have the steps you need to feel like yourself again.
And, once your energy is back up to about a 5/10, then continue through this masterclass ❤️.
Rate Your Pain
Rate your pain out of 10 as well. You want to keep an eye on your body pain when you start to make changes to your diet and lifestyle. Sometimes minor aches and pains go away…but you might not notice it. I find it’s hard to remember those ones (but the big pains are hard to forget).
Rate Your Mental State
How are you feeling mentally right now? Instead of giving this a number, list a few feelings that pop into your head when you think about how you feel.
If you have trouble describing how you feel, here’s a handy-dandy list to give you some ideas :)
https://www.hoffmaninstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/Practices-FeelingsSensations.pdf
(these lists exist because it can be so hard to put words to feelings)
Make Note of How You’re Sleeping
Sleep can be a fickle beast and sometimes it’s hard to understand why it’s easy to sleep sometimes and feels almost impossible other times. By taking note of how you sleep this month you might be able to start finding patterns.
For example, is your sleep affected (good or bad) by:
Exercise
What you eat
Alcohol
TV at night
Stress
Worry
Meditation
Keep track of your sleep daily or make note each week about how you did on average. It might help you find your sleep pattern and what you need for a deep night’s sleep.
How do you want to feel at the end of this journey?
Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths, and think/feel how you’d like to feel at the end of this journey.
Would you like more energy? Better mental health? Be exercising more?
Really feel what it’ll feel like after you’ve made a few changes. Our bodies can get quite stagnant and it can be hard to get our butt in gear sometimes. Having an image to connect to can help you get up off the couch and into the kitchen or out on a walk.
…we all need motivation sometimes, even nutritionists ☺️
Set a timeline
This is the very most important part. It’s important with any change or anytime you stretch your boundaries that you have an end date. It helps to get through those harder days…and it helps reduce feelings of deprivation.
Stretching your boundaries in any way takes effort and willpower and these “muscles” will get tired eventually. So, you want to make sure you’re through all of the stretching before that happens. This means you need to take YOU into account.
Think about how you’ve felt in the past when you’ve tried to change something. How long did it feel hard? How long did you keep up with those changes?
Here’s what I know about myself: my willpower muscle wears out REALLY quickly, and changes I really love can become habits quickly as well.
To take ME into account I always set my timeline to something really short – usually a week and at most a month. Then, I make sure the changes I’m doing are teeny tiny and fun. When I do this, I find it much easier to be successful and there’s less of a struggle day-to-day.
Here’s an example:
A few years ago, I was living alone and I was becoming very, very sedentary. I was sitting all day long and couldn’t seem to pry my butt off the couch to go for a walk.
To get myself moving I decided that I was going to go for a 5 min walk every day for 1 week. Yes, it was really that small…but that’s exactly what I needed. Any longer of a walk and I know I’d talk myself out of it. Any longer of a timeframe and I didn’t think I would be successful.
The result – I was 100% successful. Every evening I found the idea of a 5 min walk so absurdly small that I couldn’t talk myself out of it. But, what I wanted to do was keep watching Netflix. So, each day I would put my shoes on while feeling 100% confident that after 5 mins I would turn back around and plop back down onto the couch. And every single day, as soon as I got moving I went for a 30 – 45 min walk. And I continued that for months until it snowed.
Success feels great! Set your sights to something teeny tiny that you feel at least 95% confident you can knock out of the park. And when you do, you open up space for another teeny tiny change. It works surprisingly well :)
Do I need to do a cleanse?
We use the word “cleanse” in many different ways. Sometimes it relates to detoxifying but often it’s a process of removing offenders from your diet to “cleanse” your system.
I’m using the word cleanse in “ “ in this section because your body doesn’t need you to do anything for cleansing. It has a natural process that it follows every day to take out the trash and keep your cells functioning.
For this process to work well your body needs you to add more nutrient-dense food so it has the ingredients to make the right cells to clean up…it doesn’t need you to deprive your body of anything.
But, if you feel intuitively that your body would like you to remove some things to make this process easier, then go for it! And, be sure to have a specific end-date, so your body doesn’t begin to feel deprived.
And, this might be a good time to do some food experiments to see how food makes you feel. More on that in Part 4.
Got any questions or comments? Comment below, jump to our private Facebook Group, or the Ask Lisa page :).