After nine months of intense physical therapy following reconstructive knee surgery, I was discharged by my orthopedic surgeon. It was unexpectedly emotional for me. I sat in my car and cried thinking “I did it! I got my life back!”
I wouldn’t call myself fearless or a risk-taker, but there are some things I’ve tackled that many have said they’d be scared to try or afraid to do. Like picking up and moving cross country to a state I’ve never visited without knowing a soul or having a place to live. Or kayaking 26-miles down the Colorado River, despite never having even been in a kayak in my life.
With the cross-country move, kayaking trip, and nine months of physical therapy, I wasn’t afraid, never thought any of them was a big deal, and never thought I would fail. In fact, for as much as I talk to myself, I never had any ‘what if’ conversation with myself. They were just things I did.
The value of apathy
That got me thinking about mindset. I’ve mentioned numerous times how much I struggle with my diet and eating habits, but never have the same issue with exercise. It’s just something I do. Was this a mind hack?
What was different? What was the same? And how could I apply the same seemingly apathetic approach to my diet and eating habits?
To be clear, it’s not like I didn’t care about the outcome of those monumental endeavors. I did. I just didn’t obsess over them to the point of anxiety and angst. It was something that needed doing, so I did it.
Did you see that? Right there just now. Three words sum up my lifetime dieting experience. Obsession, anxiety, and angst.
The mental cost of success
Prior to Covid, I made a concerted effort to lose weight. I became very disciplined in counting calories and macros. This meant weighing, measuring, and tracking all my food and taking weekly body measurements and photos to track my progress. I gave up or limited some foods and adopted new ones to ‘hit my macros.’ It worked and I lost 20 pounds. I felt amazing; was fitting in smaller clothes and people were commenting on how great I looked.
The problem was I became increasingly anxious about the whole process. I thought about food all the time. What could I eat? What could I not eat? Can I plan for a cupcake this week? Am I eating enough protein? Did I go over on carbs or fat? When the scale ticked up by an ounce in a day, I fretted. If I ate something I wasn’t “supposed to,” I didn’t track it and suffered great angst. The mental anguish was exhausting, and I eventually stopped tracking altogether.
The one thing that never stopped, however, was my gym routine. Even after Covid hit and life ground to a halt, I still woke up at 4 am every day. Instead of going to the gym at 5 am, I worked out at home. Through the process of counting macros, I learned enough about portion control and food quality to stay within a few pounds of my goal weight. Then I tore my ACL. Aside from PT, it would be months before I stepped back inside a gym. And in that short time, I gained 10 pounds and I’ve been struggling ever since.
A renewed challenge…
Recently, I made a very public declaration that I was going to lose those 10 pounds by my birthday. I woke up one morning feeling gross and uncomfortable, and literally disgusted with myself. The 8-week timeline means a pound-a-week weight loss, which isn’t unrealistic. It can be done. But it would take extreme diligence, weighing, measuring, and tracking to reach that goal. I knew of no other way I could make that happen because that’s what it took the first time around. Calories in, calories out. Calorie deficit. All those things I’ve educated myself about, but loath doing. And again, I found myself obsessing and feeling anxious. The tracking lasted about a week and left me feeling like a failure because I couldn’t tough it out.
…and a new approach
So now I’ve come full circle. Discharged by my surgeon, knowing that I accomplished something huge, and wondering how I tackled something so difficult without the same obsessive and anxious feelings I have with weight loss.
And then I wondered – what if I just stop thinking about it and just do it? Could it be that simple? It just might be.
In the days since my ortho visit and this mini epiphany, I haven’t tracked my food at all or stuffed myself to oblivion. I’m just eating and eating sensibly. A normal breakfast, a normal lunch, maybe a snack, and a normal dinner – all in normal portion sizes. I even tried talking myself into dessert but found I wasn’t interested.
I haven’t worried about what I can or can’t eat and haven’t worried about whether I’m eating enough protein. Could it be that because I’m not telling myself “I can’t eat that,” I’ve liberated myself? Because it certainly feels liberating.
Going to the gym is part of who I am and it’s what I do. It’s part of my identity. Could I do the same with my diet? Not that I want to become a “lifetime dieter,” but rather I’d like to be someone who just eats sensibly, not obsessively.
Mind hacking a new identity
In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about identity-based habits, which shift the focus from what we want to achieve to who we want to become. Specifically, he says “The ultimate form of intrinsic motivation is when a habit becomes part of your identity. It’s one thing to say I’m the type of person who wants this. It’s very different to say I’m the type of person who is this.”
I’ve spent a lifetime telling myself, and frankly even bragging, that I am the opposite – I am obsessed with cupcakes and sweet foods. That’s the identity I’ve built for myself which I continually reinforce and reward. The challenge is to create a new identity-based habit, and that is to become a sensible eater.
So, what does this look like in practice? Well, instead of saying “I can’t have a cupcake,” I replace it with “I don’t want a cupcake.” This small change signals a shift in identity. Clear goes on to say that “the most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.” You do this by consistently choosing habits that reinforce your new identity. This is done using a two-step process:
- Decide the type of person you want to be
- Prove it to yourself with small wins.
Played out, it looks like this: I want to be a sensible eater. When confronted with a cupcake, I would ask myself “What would a sensible eater do?” and then decide. Turning down the cupcake equals a small win. Does this mean I forever avoid cupcakes? No. Because being a sensible eater also means it’s okay to eat a cupcake once in a while.
Final Words
Granted it’s only been a couple of days, but what if I cultivated this new identity of being a sensible eater instead of being a lifetime dieter or having a sweet tooth the size of Brazil? Just sitting here writing about it feels much less stressful than the idea of weight, measuring, and tracking all my food.
I started off talking about mindset and looking at things that I just do and wondering how it worked in some cases and not in others. Turns out, the things I just do are just part of my identity. And if I was able to create that identity in the last 5 years, there’s nothing that makes me think I can’t create another facet of my identity and become a sensible eater.