Good health is a process that starts from where we are and grows as we bring awareness to our lifestyle.
The first step in changing our old patterns around food and health is to observe our present health habits and patterns, without judgment – recognizing them for what they are – choices made from beliefs we have about our body, our health, and what we believe is possible for us in those areas.
We notice the habits we have without needing to defend, minimize, or rationalize them, and we look for the thought process behind those activities, Instead of focusing on what we need to give up, stop doing, or change, we focus instead, on how we’d like our relationship with our body and health to be … and we focus on believing that that IS possible for us.
We look for what we do that fits our image of where we want to go and focus on doing more of those things. We set our intention on adding that which truly nourishes us to our daily regimen instead of trying to get rid of foods and habits we see as “bad for us.” We give up needing to label our doings as bad, or wrong, and we begin to look for how our choices serve us … for instance, instead of telling ourselves that eating sugar is bad for us, and we shouldn’t do it … we shift our perception to recognizing that even eating sugar has its positive effects! Perhaps it offers us emotional “nutrition” instead of physical nutrition. Maybe that’s the purpose of sugar! Why not!? 😉
In other words, we stop using guilt to control ourselves. There is nothing more habit-reinforcing then guilt. As a matter of fact, it may be the most fattening thing we can possibly do! For this practice of bathing in guilt every time we eat something we’ve deemed as “bad for us” may be more damaging to us in the long-run than eating stuff we think we shouldn’t eat.
So – if you’ve decided to eat something, then refuse to indulge in guilt about doing it! Enjoy it fully instead; look for what you tell yourself about it, and then choose to visualize instead having the sort of positive relationship with your body that you WANT to have. Refuse to spend time fixating on how it’s not what you want, and trust that you are in a process of, step by step, moving into a healthier lifestyle all around.