A
Better or worse approach
This
principle is perhaps the key element underpinning how to make choosing
healthy choices an easy and fun thing do. It drives me crazy when
I hear people say ”that XXX is bad” or “XXX is
healthy”.
Statements
such as above are unhelpful and cause more harm than good. Let me
illustrate. First ask yourself these questions about how the following
activities impact your health and whether they are good or bad:
- Eating
cereal for your breakfast
- Running
10 km
- Drinking
milk.
- Eating
one piece of chocolate a day.
- Being
18 stone (115 Kg, 250 Lbs)
I am
sure you have gathered the answers to these.The truth is you cannot
answer these questions with the information you have. Do not get
me wrong, you will find a million experts on TV, radio and amongst
your friends happy to tell you that the above behavior is good or
bad for you. The truth is these behaviors cannot be answered as
good or bad.
Life
is relative – nothing is absolute.
The
strange thing in life is everyone is desperate to label things.
People want to label you as a certain type of person, people want
to label things good or bad and people want to label your behaviour.
This
is beyond logic. The only way to deem something good or bad is to
compare it (silently or subconsciously) to something else. Therefore
if it is compared to something else you are talking better or worse.
Let me explain why this is important using the above statements:
Eating
cereal for your breakfast –
The
TV adverts tell you this is the way to go but what if you are intolerant
to Milk and / or wheat. Would it be better to have no breakfast
rather than cereal if this is the case? Maybe changing the cereal
would help. What if I had left over dinner for breakfast? The truth
is some people will do awful having breakfast for cereal each day
and not achieve their goals. However some people will do well on
it. It is neither good nor bad as a general term.
Running
10 km –
If
your muscles are not working efficiently then the joints are not
protected and running will cause more harm than good. However there
are very few people who cannot correct these imbalances and then
use jogging effectively for many of the amazing benefits it has
to offer. Whether 10km is ideal depends on how often you run it
and what your body is able to handle. Some experts would say this
is too much aerobic exercise but compared to doing nothing which
is better? You cannot say running is good nor bad.
Drinking
milk –
Promoted
as good for your bones is milk good for you? What if you are intolerant
to it, would it be better to have none than to continue to have
it for the calcium? Maybe it is not a lack of calcium in your body
that is stopping you losing weight, maybe it is another mineral,
and would drinking milk help that? Deeming milk good or bad does
not come close to answering these questions.
Eating
one piece of chocolate a day –
Questions
to ask would include how much chocolate are you having, what would
happen if you did not eat this chocolate? Would it be better to
spend 10 minutes on your mental connection to chocolate than going
down the gym today or watching that TV show? Eating chocolate like
all other health issues is neither good nor bad. The question is
how much can you eat and get the results you want?
Being
18 stone (115 Kg, 250 Lbs) –
If
I was 20 stones last month would being 18 stone this month be considered
bad? What if it was the reverse?
The
above should show you that it is time to drop the good or bad labeling
for ever because it is irrelevant and does not help you in any way.
View
the world as better or worse
I must
reiterate this as it is one of the most important principles in
losing weight and the key to free your mind mentally. Adoption of
this one mental strategy is enough to get you to your goals if you
truly understand its power and meaning.
Tell
your friends and experts alike.
When
your friends, family or celebrity TV experts next say something
is bad you should immediately ask………compared to
what?
When
someone tells me something is good or bad I almost immediately switch
off as it shows they have no truly thought about what they are saying.
Such statements are very counter productive. They undermine your
beliefs and the result is you feel trapped.
In
the end you hear so many people say everything is bad it becomes
almost pointless and you think, what am I meant to eat?.....I will
just eat anything.
I had this exact feeling a few years ago.
I went
to many lectures on organic food. All I heard was how non organic
food was bad for you. These world respected lecturers provided a
strong argument about how bad non organic food could be for your
health.
The
result was I didn't’t want to eat non organic vegetables.
However this left me in an awkward position when I could not find
any organic vegetables. I would therefore not eat as much as I should
have and often felt hungry.
A hungry
person is almost guaranteed to eat refined foods or quick fix options
which compared to eating non organic vegetables is not even in the
same ball park.
At
this stage I realized that these experts had it all wrong. Yes,
their meaning was correct in lets try to eat organic vegetables.
However their message of delivery was poor. However it showed me
that everything is along a scale and that I must always ask myself
the better or worse questions.
For
the above I would now ask if it is better to eat these non organic
vegetables compared to going hungry and being tempted to eat pastries,
breads and other foods that dominate our diet now. For me the answer
is a resounding yes for non organic vegetables. Would it be the
same for you?
View
the world as relative, I want you to switch off when you hear someone
say that something is bad for you or good for you. Instead ask how
it could be better or worse in comparison to other behaviours and
how you can improve what you are doing.
Take
this attitude further for great results.
If
you want to adopt this attitude and then use metabolic typing, exercise
and EFT to achieve your health and fitness goals then consider working
with me through personal
training here in London or On
line.
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