Still feel guilty eating "bad" foods?
Hello everyone, welcome back to the podcast. I just want to let you all know that it seems in the groups that a lot of you are getting it in terms of simplification, not over analysing everything, thinking that one day is going to ruin stuff. It's nice to see that this is the mindset being picked up because ultimately this is the most critical part of utilising the app. The app is just a tool. There's many tools out there that help you track your nutrition whilst we think this is the easiest method and it doesn't rely on perfection, because perfection doesn't exist in nutrition tracking, it doesn't exist in anything in fact, apart from Wales, but you can't rely on something being, you know, trying to get perfect.
Speaker 1:And I think the first step is this understanding that the journey is going to be bumpy, you're going to have days you're going to eat thousands of calories over target sometimes, days where you don't want to go for your steps, you're not going to hit all your targets. That's the first step in the successful part of the journey. And if you don't do that, if you don't accept that, you're always going to stop and start based on if the day was perfect or not. And you can apply this to everything starting a business, a new job role. You would be insane to say to someone new who starts a job, 'if you don't get it right today perfectly, you're out.' Most companies give three to six months probation periods, training periods.
Speaker 1:You do all these courses, there's a lot that goes into it. When I think after university I went on a graduate scheme and I started working in sales, inbound insurance. And we had six or eight weeks of every single day nine to five training. Then we went into a phase of three months of Ling purring out into the world, testing out things, having ratings like red, amber and green calls. And then after that you were left out to the main field and still then you'd have reviews and help.
Speaker 1:And I think when it comes to nutrition and training and lifestyle stuff, we feel like we failed straight away after one day and it just doesn't apply to anything else in our lives. And I think another thing I've realized as well, and it's like a really good piece of advice really, is that when it comes to people talking about their eating, their nutrition, if someone tells you that they never eat sugar, they never eat processed foods, they stay away from all of that, they're lying. Because 99% of the time, all of the human beings in the Western world, we are going to have takeaways. We're going to have chocolates, we're going to have something that is considered bad, which is not bad, and if someone's trying to come across like they're perfect with their nutrition, don't take advice on that stuff because it's not reality. A lot of these plans out there are Instagrammers putting stuff out there with abs maybe, yes granted they look in shape and they're telling you, oh, I did this and that because I followed this program, and I did, and I look like this because of that.
Speaker 1:And then six months down the line, you hear them come out and say, hey, guys, basically, just going to be honest with you, the last few years have been posting, I've not been healthy behind the scenes whilst I've looked amazing on camera and I've abs. Actually, I've had big problems with my mindset and eating and I was binging secretly once a week, twice a week and getting depressed about La la. Right? I've seen so many of these. So you've got to be careful.
Speaker 1:The people that come across like they're saints and perfect eaters tend to behind the scenes have most of the time a bad relationship with food. The people who are very flexible and upfront about stuff like, Yeah, I do eat chocolate bar from time to time. Yeah, I do have McDonald's sometimes. Yeah, I do have a takeaway sometimes. Yeah, I do.
Speaker 1:Some breakfasts, I don't have the high protein breakfast, sometimes I want a quick snack. That's just how humans are in this environment. But what I am going to be doing is I'm going to be aware of these behaviors so then one day or in time I can start tweaking behaviors and slowly we're not feeling guilty about changes we're doing, we're doing changes from an empowered position. Like, how many times has it worked for you to feel guilty about doing something instead of empowering? You shouldn't be doing that.
Speaker 1:You should be doing this. You're an idiot. Does that work? Does that work in you? Does it work managers?
Speaker 1:Does it work for managers? Or is it better to empower people instead? Like, listen. We all make mistakes. Suggest this path.
Speaker 1:You can do this more often than not. Here's the benefits. There's a cool story in, I can't remember what book it is, either How to Win Friends and Influence People or I think it's in How to Stop Worrying and Start Living. He's a famous business guy, I think he owns aircrafts and he had this apprentice kid come and do a job in terms of fueling the craft. The young boy fueled the craft with the wrong fuel, super dangerous, everyone could have died.
Speaker 1:Now the owner of the business said he didn't crucify the kid, didn't say you're an idiot for doing that, get out. He actually went to the kid and said I want you to do the job again tomorrow, there's a lesson to be learned there. And he says, this kid's gonna learn the lesson there. Empowered. He can make mistakes.
Speaker 1:Yeah. Lucky. Nothing bad happened, but you're not gonna make the same mistake again, is he? And it's not from a place of guilt. It's from a place of he was like, look.
Speaker 1:We all make mistakes. I want you to realize that you can make mistakes, but, you know, be careful. And then it's more empowering. He's like, yeah. Okay.
Speaker 1:I made a mistake, but I'm I'm gonna double check now. I'm gonna do it from a place of, wow. Like, this guy's got my back. Wow. I'm gonna make sure that I do check things more thoroughly.
Speaker 1:I want to be that type of guy that can be trusted on. He's trusted me, I'm going to trust myself to do the best job possible. Far better place. And I think that's really what it comes down to. It's like if someone's telling you guilty I kind of in real life when I speak to people and they try and guilt trip me on this and that, I hear them talking about foods with moral judgment.
Speaker 1:Find it hard not to interject and say, you can't morally judge food, guys. Everyone's out there thinking big food is trying to kill you. If big food was trying to kill you, they'd have no one left to sell things to and you'd be dead. Yes, they do overly do foods, they taste amazing so you think oh my god I'm buy more and they disregard health in that sense because it adds things in and all that, but it's up to us to moderate our intake of those foods. Those foods are not going to be taken away.
Speaker 1:Those foods are always going to be there. If they put a sugar tax on things they will reduce the sugar and they will increase fat content, a lot of taste comes from fat. It's always going to be something that they manipulate essentially that we're not going to get away from. So it'd be up to us to moderate stuff. And just to remind you, there was one study done on moderation and what worked, seeing if you didn't buy the snacks or the food, telling your friends to tell you not to eat there, telling your partner to tell you not to eat there, eating the light calorie versions of the foods you love.
Speaker 1:So they got people to list out the problem foods, the five problem foods. And this study really sticks in my mind because the only group intervention out of all the ways of moderating the foods you could say the problem food, which is again the bad word to use, but foods that you love that are high in calories: pizza, burgers, chocolate. What do you think worked for that? What do you think was the strategy of moderation that worked for those foods? Do you think it was never eating them?
Speaker 1:Do think you it was having low calorie versions? Do you think it was telling your partner to tell you not to eat them if you feel guilty? No. The only intervention that actually worked on moderating these problem foods was actually eating the foods in moderation, not frequently, but it was considered weekly or whatever. That might surprise you, like how come eating the food that you've listed as a problem means you're going to moderate your eating on it?
Speaker 1:Because you've now turned off that it's a problem. It's no longer a problem. It's part of a flexible eating routine and food that you really enjoy and love. It brings you things such as eating around your food with friends and family, what is your favorite place to eat locally? I don't know what it is.
Speaker 1:It's not just single-minded about food and you're no longer making it a problem because you're saying, 'hey, I do like this food, I eat it, I understand it's high calories and I'm going have to adjust a few things probably, but it's part of what I like to do and this is my life and I understand within the context of a wholesome, mostly nutrient dense diet, it's not gonna kill me like Daily Mail says or like someone bloody says on Instagram. So that's the thing, guys. Once you stop making food a problem morally, it becomes less of a problem when it comes to deciding, and I think we then start eating from a place of empowerment and not guilt. The more we fight something, the more it becomes a problem. I think that's quite clear in our minds.
Speaker 1:The more you try and stop yourself feeling worried, you tend to feel more worried. The more you stop and say, why am I feeling so anxious about this? And you start feeling more anxious about it. So we kind of need to let things be, let things flower. Just observe the flower in and let flower in, you know, let it flower and die.
Speaker 1:It's like this non reactive state of being which in the Eastern philosophies is called bear attention, the Buddhists would call it. Maybe people these days call it meditation, other people call it awareness, whatever you want to call it. It's kind of like not letting yourself react and fight everything. You're just fighting yourself over and over and over, and you're not perfect. And if you want proof of you're not perfect, there's a book called Behave by Robert Sapolsky.
Speaker 1:It talks about why we do things, it talks about nanoseconds before we take an action to the thousands and hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. And it's striking the things that can impact our behavior outside of our control and stuff. Which is like things that you think and feel without you consciously thinking. So you might feel anxious without thinking of something, or you might feel some kind of fear and you're not really thought about it just happened, it's like bypassed your thinking cognitive part of the brain and gone straight through to the limbic system essentially. And then what do we say?
Speaker 1:Oh my god, I can't control it. No, we say this has happened, the event has happened and it's not the event that disturbs us, it's not the thing that's happened that disturbs us, it's our opinion about it that does. So it's what happens afterwards that tends to become the problematic thing. It's fine to feel sad, happy, like all of those emotions, they happen. And when we eat food we tend to do this, oh my god, I've had a Mars bar, I really liked it though, oh my god, I can't lose weight now, I'm going to put all of that fat that's going stow away.
Speaker 1:You've run away and now you've created a problem from the event and it's really just your opinion of that Mars bar that has ended up taking you down a two or three hour WhatsApp chat with the girls or the boys. I can't believe I had another Mars bar. Why? Why am I doing it? It's fine.
Speaker 1:And some of might be thinking, Scott, do you love talking about processed foods? Are you a salesman for Mars bar or Oreo icing, sandwich and stuff? No. I'm a realist. And I look at the research.
Speaker 1:I look at all of you guys and what tends to work in terms of helping you over the long time I've been doing this, meeting people face to face, understanding that the guilt part has been the most crippling part for most people's journeys. And if there's one thing I can do that help you to focus one day at a time is to get that down, get that reduced, so then you can work from a place of empowerment and awareness and not be, you know, fighting yourself all day. And then you're gonna start making changes because guess what? The only thing you have to do day to day is a few simple things. Like I've mentioned all the time, the studies I mentioned, and they're coming out and saying the same thing.
Speaker 1:Simple, powerful behaviors done consistently is life changing in anything you do, and it's especially true for nutrition, business, your work, family, whatever. So focus on the basics. Don't beat yourself up if today isn't the perfect day that you planned, because chances are it's not gonna be. I remember what the stoics discovered a long time ago before we were looking into all the neuroscience of the brain. It's not things that disturb us.
Speaker 1:It's our opinion about them. So take that on to the on board today, and have a good one.
