Today I want to discuss how I broke the habit of eating unhealthy foods to create a lean body; this principle will apply to any habit:

Several years ago I decided I that I wanted to be in great physical shape.  I knew that in order to do this I would have to:

1.  Work out, and

2.  Eat Healthy Foods

It sounded simple enough…but I discovered that it wasn’t as easy as I first thought it would be…

The reason it wasn’t super easy is because our lives are NOT governed by “good ideas,” but by two master “Governors,” those governors are pleasure and pain.

These “Governors” determine what actions we take on a daily basis.

And it’s not so much that we’re governed by pleasure and pain, as much as we’re governed by our perception of what is pleasurable and what is painful.

Some Examples

• For the “pleasure” of staying in bed every morning, you ignore your alarm clock.
  • To avoid the “pain” of being late for work, you eventually get out of bed.
• For the “pleasure” of procrastination, you don’t pay your bills right away.
  • To avoid the “pain” of a late fee, you pay them before they’re past due.
• For the “pleasure” of eating, you enjoy an ice-cream cone.
  • To avoid the “pain” of being overweight, you go on a binge diet.

Everything we do is to create pleasure or avoid pain.  Change only happens when the pain outweighs the pleasure, or when the pleasure outweighs the pain.

My Former Thinking

When I use to think of eating healthy foods, I would associate pain with that activity (e.g. who wants to eat vegetables ).  When I use to think of eating junk foods, I would associate pleasure with that activity (yes, another scoop of ice-cream please ).

Do you follow me…

When I would think of working out, I would associate pain with that activity.  When I would think of staying at home and not working out, I would associate pleasure with that activity.

Do you see where the problem existed, it was in my mind’s association of what was pleasurable and what was painful; I was being improperly governed by pleasure and pain.

The question I had to ask myself was, “Is it really that painful to workout and eat healthy?”  And the answer was, “It’s not that painful, people workout and eat healthy all the time, and enjoy it;” the pain only exists in my mind’s perception.  It was an improper association of pain.

In order for me to change my bad eating habits and get into shape, I had to first change my mind’s association with working out and eating properly.  I had to change how I thought about these activities.

You see, as long as you associate pain with eating healthy foods, you will never be able to do it for the long-term.  You may be able to use your will-power to do it for a little while, but eventually the powerful governors of pain and pleasure will take over, and you will begin to do what you find pleasurable, avoiding pain at all cost.  The only solution is to change what your mind associates as painful and pleasurable.

So here’s what I did to break the habit of eating unhealthy foods:

1.  The first thing I did was to write down what was painful about eating unhealthy foods; I wrote down everything I didn’t like, my list looked something like this:

• Feelings of Guilt
• Dissatisfaction with my Body
• Additional Fat
• Low Energy
• Feelings of  Heaviness and Tiredness After Eating
• Unhealthy body
• Shame

2.  I then wrote down what was pleasurable about eating healthy foods:

• Pride
• Satisfaction with my Body
• Fat Loss
• Feelings of Happiness
• Light and Active After Eating
• Healthy body
• High Energy

I then begin to tell myself (during my time of daily meditation) that unhealthy foods make me feel guilty, dissatisfied, overweight and shameful, and that healthy foods make me feel proud, satisfied, thin, active, light, healthy and energetic.

I told myself this daily for weeks.

Then the habit began to form, my mind began to make the proper association.  An association that I had consciously decided for it to make; the association was that it was more painful to eat unhealthy foods than healthy foods, or that it was more pleasurable to eat healthy foods versus unhealthy foods.  I soon began to make better choices, and I’ve been consistent for years now.

This is not to say that I don’t occasionally have something that’s unhealthy, but when I do, alarms go off in my head saying, “This is painful, this is painful, it’s going to make you overweight” I then enjoy the minimal pleasure associated with eating the unhealthy food, and then continue on my path of eating more pleasurable healthy foods.

The reason we perform bad habits is because of the short-term pleasure they provide.  We must STOP and consciously realize that good habits provide even better long-term pleasures.  We must decide to program our minds for the long-term!

It will take some will-power at first, but then the new habit will form.  As long as you continue to reinforce the mental associations, you should have no problem continuing with the new habit.

The key is to replace one habit with another; I replaced the habit of eating unhealthy foods with the habit of eating healthy foods.

I used my example of eating, but I could have very well used my example of working out.  This technique will work on almost any habit; the habit of waking up late in the morning, the habit of showing up late to work, et cetera.

It’s just a matter of reprogramming your mind!

So reprogram your mind today, as I like to say, change, isn’t change, until your change.

Thank you for reading mrselfdevelopment.com where every article expands your mind, increases your faith, and changes your life.

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