Mar 4, 2014

2014 Focus: Get Healthy {Not Through Deprivation and Self-Loathing}

Get Healthy in 2014 with chieffamilyofficer.com

This year, I'm focusing on getting healthy, and I have as much work to do mentally as I do physically. You can read the posts in this series in reverse chronological order here.

I still haven't finished reading Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything by Geneen Roth, but I've got the gist and it was well-articulated in this interview with Cheryl Richardson {FYI, I downloaded it as a podcast from iTunes}.

My main takeaway is this: Diets don't work because hating ourselves and depriving ourselves can't possibly lead to the happiness we're seeking. And I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that a woman who's dieting thinks she will be much happier when she's done dieting and has lost the weight.

The process of how we eat is just as important as the outcome.

This goes hand in hand with an Internet Business Mastery podcast I listened to, where one of the topics they talked about was learning to enjoy the process rather than focusing on the outcome, or buying into the arrival fallacy - the notion that you'll be happy when you {fill in the blank}.

So now when I'm on the treadmill, I'm thinking about how good it feels to get my heart rate up, to be moving, rather than counting the minutes until I can get off. I try not to think about losing weight, but rather about nourishing my body with tasty, healthy food - taking care of my own health as much I take care of my children's health.

It's obviously an ongoing process . . . but one that already feels transformative.

I'm not sure if I'm making sense to anyone else, though!

2 comments:

Gina said...

I'm doing the same thing right now, trying to balance the mental with the physical, all with the focus of "don't beat myself up." I'm very quick to do that! I just finished a book called Eat, Move, Sleep and every single thing in it made so much sense. It's all connected, and even little steps/changes can make a big difference.

Chief Family Officer said...

I hear ya! My mantra for the last couple of years has been "good enough," and recently I've been drawn to "progress, not perfection." I'll have to check that book out - thanks, Gina!