The Hardest Part Of Eating Healthy

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I achieved my weight loss goal by only eating healthy. But it wasn’t easy. I had to research the internet and do many trial-and-errors before I got the answer. In this post, I’ll share what was the hardest part of eating healthy for me.

What Is The Hardest Part of Eating Healthy? Having the correct knowledge and the one that works for you is the hardest part. There is an information explosion everywhere and especially on the internet. By using the right tools and techniques you will be able to sift the right information. Also, no amount of knowledge can substitute the necessity for direct action.

I shall share my wisdom on how to tackle the hardest part of eating healthy. Also, I’ll give you a few techniques that you can employ to solve the problem for yourself.

In this post you will learn:

How to sift for Correct Knowledge?

In my case, I used the internet and the offline world both to get the answer. Researching is a skill. You cannot randomly just research for the sake of it. Let me give you a few pointers while you research:

  • Trust info from people who have achieved health goals for themselves
  • Speak to qualified professionals
  • Read books from reputable publications
  • Trust info from reputable websites

Sources of info to avoid

  • “Lose-massive-weight-overnight” type websites
  • People with only theoretical knowledge
  • Avoid blogs and websites whose ideas don’t resonate with you. This is just a personal preference.

My favourite method to find trustworthy info – Find a Mentor

I strongly believe in trusting information from people who have achieved health goals for themselves. They have done most of our required work, fortunately. They have researched, experimented and found out what works. The only problem being that their method may not work for us. It is still better than researching the whole internet and the offline world by ourselves. If we can find 3-4 such people then I’m sure that the method recommended by one of them will definitely work for us.

Why finding a mentor is our best bet?

Let us do the math. Say, we would prefer to do the research ourselves. We will easily spend a month sifting for quality info. Then we will spend another 2 months taking action on the acquired info (here I am making a strong assumption that you are a good decision-maker who doesn’t get stuck in analysis-paralysis). If we are fortunate we may get the result in the first attempt itself. But mostly it takes 2-3 serious attempts before we achieve our goal. We will have to rinse and repeat the process of research and taking action until we achieve our goal.

Once you have achieved the goal, imagine the amount of info you have. Also, think of the practical wisdom you have gained. Now if a newbie comes to you, would you recommend him doing the whole process himself or you would be tempted to guide the person. Frankly I guess it depends on the aptitude and the attitude of the person. Some of us just want to do things ourselves, even if it is reinventing the wheel. That is just us, and we should be fine with it.

How to find mentors?

  • Read blogs (you are reading one 😉 )
  • Find in your friends and family
  • Try to reach the people mentioned in the success testimonials of qualified professionals
  • Use social media (my least preferred method)

Criteria to shortlist a mentor

  • They should have good teaching skills

Just because someone has knowledge doesn’t mean they can teach that knowledge. So, look for mentors with good teaching skills.

  • They should be accessible

If your mentor isn’t available to clear your doubts then you’ll struggle with understanding the concepts. This will lead to a loss of interest.

  • They should be consistent in their knowledge and action

Your mentor should follow what they preach. Of course, they would be ahead of you in the journey hence certain leeway would be allowed to them. This is because they are aware of the technicalities and know the balance. But broadly they should be doing what they are teaching.

  • They should have the skin in the game

Your mentor should be impacted by your result. This is a sticky condition so please understand it. If you fail to do what your mentor has asked you then you are at fault otherwise the mentor needs to take the blame. Having a money-back guarantee can be one of the ways. But health is a sensitive issue and cannot be treated like a business. So, establish rapport with your mentor and decide what can be put at stake. Ultimately, this is a long journey and you are going to give your best. So having clarity and credibility will give you confidence in your pursuit.

You may understand from the above points that shortlisting a mentor isn’t a straightforward process. Hence, don’t get swayed by the flash-and-glamour of their social media pages, products & services and testimonial pages or any other aesthetic aspect. Try to connect with them in person and know them.

One personal advice from me would be to stay away from the mainstream. Finding a mentor is truly like finding a needle in a haystack. If you can get to talk to the person even once then you are good to go. This intimacy between the mentor and the mentee is absent when dealing with corporates, large websites or famous personal-brand stars.

Two big impediments to taking action

  • The voice of doubt

It is the feeling of “not being sure” of whether the knowledge would work for you

  • Impatience

It is the idea that you can work harder & smarter and reduce the time required to achieve your goal

Voice of Doubt

Now let us assume that you have found a great teacher from whom you can learn. Still, you are not sure whether their technique would work for you. You will have to validate it yourself by taking action on their teachings.

Philosophy Alert: Please allow me to digress here and get a little philosophical. There is something about not being sure. Especially when we are learning something new. It feels like we should have the best possible resource before we begin taking any action. As if we want the infinite-universe itself to come and reassure us personally for us to believe in something. 

How to overcome the voice of doubt?

Let me tell you a secret here. Being sure is a learnable skill. It is similar to developing intuition. Now before you jump to conclusions let me warn you here. I am not talking about the “gut feeling” or “your heart already knows” kind of things. I am talking about something more concrete here. Learn the technique of taking-action-without-motivation.

Follow these steps:

  1. Get a teacher
  2. Take action on their teaching even if you are not motivated
  3. Don’t judge too early. Give yourself and their teaching a good 67 days.
  4. Don’t blindly take action. It has to be deliberate action i.e. the action of focussed attention with a specific goal of improving performance.
  5. If at the end of 67 days you don’t get any result then you can either change the teacher or give their teaching another try (if your gut says so). But not more than 2 times.

Repeat the above steps for other teachers. You are now taking action without motivation. You are still not sure if the process works but you continue to take action. After few weeks result will start to trickle. That’ll automatically motivate you to increase your effort effortlessly.

Impatience

You may be thinking that this is such a long process. And without sugar-coating let me tell you that this is true. Also, let me tell you the good news. The result is guaranteed.

Rant Alert: We live in the age of impatience. For some reason, it has also become a glamorous word. But anybody, and I mean anybody who has achieved anything worthwhile will disagree with it. We think patience is boring and that is not what winners do. There should always be a smarter way to do things. The answer is hidden in the statement itself. “Smarter” way to “do” things. In our quest to find a smarter way, we spend way too much time not doing anything. There is too much intellectual masturbation going on. Rant over 😉

How to appreciate patience?

Let us make patience beautiful and hopefully glamourous. I’ll give three beautiful examples for it. Understand the essence of these examples and you will appreciate the power of patience.

Example 1: Visualise you are traveling by train and the destination is quite far (say 14 hours). But you are 100% sure of the destination. Do you keep checking all the time if you have reached the destination or how far is it? I believe you don’t. But then the journey seems boring. So what do you do? You focus on making the journey enjoyable. You’ll read books, chat with your co-passengers, enjoy the scenery, etc. By being impatient you will only cause stress to yourself.

Example 2: The huge banyan tree grows from a single seed. Let us assume it takes 40000 liters of water over 40 years to reach its size. Do you think if we give that much amount of water overnight it’ll grow its full size? No! On the contrary, you will destroy it. We cannot short-change nature’s rule. So what do we do now? We have 40 years but the result is guaranteed. We enjoy the process. You’ll appreciate it growing. You’ll enjoy the process of taking care of it. You may even treat it like raising a child.

Example 3: You are stuck in jail. How do you make it interesting? Here being impatient of your release date will only make things miserable. So you focus on making the stay enjoyable. Unless you are planning an escape you will focus on doing anything purely for the joy of it. And if you are planning one then it would probably be the most joyous 😉 You will develop hobbies and interests and complete your term as designated.

I hope the above examples will make you appreciate patience more. Though in this case the result is guaranteed I’ll still request you to do things for the love of doing without being concerned with the results.

Note on progress:

Progress = Intensity + Consistency

Progress is not an illusion, it happens, but it is slow and invariably disappointing (George Orwell). Take a long term view of healthy-eating. Aristotle said that we become virtuous by practicing virtue. We are what we consistently do. So, by consistently working on your goal the slow and invariably disappointing progress accumulates until the improvement is eventually marked. It’s certainly what happened when I was learning the healthy-eating skill: trust the process, do everything right, and eventually the rewards come.

 

Kind request: I want to request you to have an open mind and give my program a try. I am not charging any fees for it. I genuinely want you to achieve your goal. At any point, if you face any problem in understanding the program please feel free to email me. I promise I’ll help you in every way to achieve your goal. Wish you the best. Happy Eating!