What is a more powerful tool than self-discipline for getting your body into shape?
When I talk to people who are interested in improving their lifestyle, especially their eating habits and exercise, they always conclude our conversion with the sad proclamation, “I have no willpower to avoid junk food,” or “I have no discipline to work out regularly.” So, my response to them is that taking care of our bodies, which means eating food that nourishes our bodies, doing physical activities that strengthen our bodies, and meditating to support our mental health, should not be the results of iron-fist discipline. Our reason for caring for our bodies and keeping them in their best shape should be love — not fear!
You should care for your body just like a mother, who cares for her child unconditionally. She doesn’t get up at night when her child is crying because of her well-trained discipline, but because of her love for her child. If she relied solely on her discipline, she would run out of that source of energy within the first two months of sleepless nights. Only her unconditional love for her child will enable her to stay up for so many nights taking care of her child.
Therefore, when I coach my clients, my goal is to help them create unconditional love for their bodies. It might sound cliche, but just think about it: When you put your body above anything else — food, drugs, alcohol, comfort, excuses, and laziness — you won’t need discipline anymore. This love will be more powerful and last much longer (actually, forever) than any Olympic athlete’s self-discipline. It is so much easier waking up early in the morning and going to the gym with love and respect for your body, than by simply using sheer willpower.
Here are 4 tips on how to stick to a healthy lifestyle using unconditional love and respect for your body instead of discipline:
1. Use feelings instead of pictures as your motivation: Have two or three days of healthy eating, add some walking or any form of physical activity, and pay attention to how you feel when you wake up after those three healthy days. You will feel more energized, satisfied, and proud of yourself and your body; the feelings of guilt about eating bad food, shame of your body, and general unhappiness and depression will be gone. Try to imprint this feeling and use this feeling in the morning when you are waking up. You see, the bikini pictures or that body wearing a sexy dress will eventually fade off, and then we will get off the track of eating healthy food and working out. And if you are tempted to eat a double dinner or skip a workout, just think how miserable you will feel the next day.
2. Apply reward instead of punishment: Punishments and guilt never go together with losing weight or getting in shape. The more we try to punish ourselves for the bad days, the farther away we move from our goals. Therefore, I have learned from my own experiences and from all my clients that you will get much better results if you treat your body with a carrot, not a whip. If you had a bad day, take a break and reward yourself with a bath or by watching a movie so as not to go completely crazy over a one-day failure.
3. Be flexible instead of stubbornly sticking to the plan: I find that being flexible while following your plan and getting into shape is the most important for two reasons: 1. Our lives are unpredictable, and so is the schedule of our days; there is always some situation that makes it so we won’t be able to eat or exercise exactly as planned, and having second or third options will help us to stay on the path following our healthy plan; 2. Being flexible and choosing the second or third plan option won’t put us into “guilt mode” or trigger an avalanche of “bad day bingeing.”
4. Exercise with joy instead of obsession: After all the years of working with my clients and observing people working out, I can tell who is working out because of a love for their body versus working out from obsession and cultural pressure. The difference is not in the intensity of the workout, but in the physical appearance. When you work out or exercise with joy, the body responds to the physical activity twice as effectively as when you work out from sheer cultural pressure.
And here is a bonus tip:
5. Follow your faith instead of others’ science and trends: I connect to my Higher Self to know which foods my body needs. If you pay attention and connect with your body and your Higher Self, I promise you will learn exactly what your body needs: which vegetables, fruits, exercises, etc. You will also learn which foods hurt your body and sabotage your results. Most importantly, you will avoid all the detours you’d take by blindly following all the TikTok diet and workout trends. To learn how to listen to your body, read Mindful Eating here.
As we age (or, let me be more precise: as I age), I like and value my freedom more and more. I consider discipline to be something that restricts my freedom. I don’t like to be told by any diet what to eat and not to eat. Everything I do must come from within and from love — nothing else. I always say, “I am too old to let other things or other people control me.” Therefore, I don’t rely on discipline to keep my body healthy and strong. I only operate with unconditional love and respect for the miraculous machine I have been gifted. You, too, have received a beautiful gift — but you only get ONE!
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If you are ready to transform your day-to-day life with a healthy and fit body, email me: heavenlybodyafter40@gmail.com
