When your passions are workouts and nutrition, you go through a lot of inner fights. More often than not, when I have wanted to achieve something, the process wasn’t smooth, and instead it had to do with a lot of force. When I started following a nutrition plan, I used to fight with my own self, my mind and my desires. I didn’t have the inner conviction that I need to eat healthy. I thought that I was “supposed to”, if I want to achieve my goals. I won’t lie that back then my goals were superficial – I just wanted to lose weight in order to look better, attract more attention and other teenage goals like that. My daily life used to be a fight with food. I knew that I wasn’t supposed to eat fries, chocolate, candy, pizza… and I was craving them so much. I used to feel deprived and I was trying to find motivation, by convincing myself that I had a goa and it was worth the deprivation.
There is no need to say that I didn’t achieve much and even the smallest transformation that I had was really in the short term. Back then I did not realize how it was possible to be so hard. Now I look back on my older self and I wish I could say so many things. I wish I could look at myself and tell that the external transformation is not a result of the fight with your own self and your own convictions. It is a result of the change in your values and identity. It is a result of motivation, that comes from a deeper meaning. A meaning that has nothing to do with the package and how it looks. A meaning that has to do with much more:
-like having been sick and having realized that your condition is a result of the choices you make;
-the realization that your choices are the fruit of your values and convictions;
-having humiliated yourself and having self- punished yourself, by getting isolated from the world, in a small room, where your only solace used to be food, and then realizing that you choose your life and that you deserve the best;
-like having a goal that has to do with your performance and physical abilities and realizing that achieving this goal, depends on the fuel you give to your body and the energy it receives; like realizing what is the freedom you get, when you start taking care of yourself and your body ad how the whole world changes with the decision to live better and healthier.
All of this brings a deeper sense of meaning, which shifts the focus from and inner fight to inner power. A power that is the fruit of motivation.
Because every time there is force, there is a counter force that is trying to counteract. Force is a movement. Power on the other hand stands still. By forcing, you are always moving against something. Force by its essence is something incomplete and it constantly needs energy that feeds it.
Power is complete and it doesn’t need anything external. Power doesn’t have demands and needs. Force has an unhealthy appetite and it constantly has the need to consume more. Power gives energy – force takes it away.
Power is something that makes us feel free and feel that everything is in our own hands. Force makes us feel helpless and as if we constantly need to make efforts, in order to deserve what we want.
While I used to fight with food, nothing happened. I was constantly in the search of a new diet, a new approach. I was constantly feeling disappointed and just when I felt like I had a couple days when I have done everything right, there came a moment with a new extreme – a moment when I lost control and I used to eat huge amounts of food and a lot of crap. Every time when there is force, the moment when you are not on the alert, the opponent attacks you. Even when the antagonist is your ow mind.
When you are led by your inner sense of power, that comes from your identity, values and convictions, then you do not need to be on the alert. Then you know that there isn’t anything external that could attack you, because you are the one who chooses. You choose according to your own sense of meaning and goals. You choose not because you “should”, but because you “want”. You do not act because that is what you “need to do”, but because that is what you “choose to do”.
You don’t do because this is “required”, but because this is what you like and what brings you joy. You do not feel deprived, because you know that you are free and this is what you choose. You do not try to control, but you just accept. You don’t go into extremes, because you have achieved balance.
Healthy eating is unpleasant and a fight with yourself, just when the main motive is not something with a deeper meaning; just when it is the premise to achieving egocentric and selfish goals; just when it I not a part of your values and identity, but instead it is imposed from the outside. Just when it is not the fruit of inner determination and dedication, but a result of forcing yourself to do something you don’t believe in.
If you feel that you are fighting with your diet and your weight, stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself. Think if you are not starting from the wrong place. If your goals aren’t the fruit of somebody’s else’s expectations, that you are trying to please. Then sit and rethink everything. Realize what matters for you and reformulate your goal.
Eat healthy, not in order to gather more “like” in Facebook, but in order to have the inner sense of significance and the conviction that you are doing something better for yourself.
Live better, not in order to look sexier on the beach, but in order to feel better even when you are in a sweatshirt.
Choose better for yourself, not because somebody expects it from you, but because you realize that this is the only way to create the world, where you feel in comfort and in peace.
Eat better, not in order to see how the numbers on the scale decrease, but in order to feel how your health improves.
Choose better for yourself, not because this is fashion, but because this is a part of your values and a part of who you are.
