Knowing that what you are doing is not right for you is one thing, knowing why you are doing it is the first step to solving the problem. However understanding precisely what could happen to you if you don’t stop doing it, is the key to affecting lasting change.
When you know what you want and what having that will enable you to do and feel, you are starting to awaken to the realisation, of what could be possible in your life.
I don’t know if you are an optimist who views the glass half full or pessimist who views the glass as half empty. Maybe you are a realist who knows what actions to take when they see that the glass is filled equally with water and air.
Perhaps you may see the benefit in emptying the water out of the glass to make room for something more valuable. That is entirely your choice.
The monkey eats the peanuts because he likes them the fact that they offer him nutrition is not something that your average monkey will really think about.
Luckily we evolved about 250,000 years ago and most of us are credited with some form of higher intelligence than most bush monkeys!
Apart from any religious connotations, probably the most important distinction that we have as humans is the ability to make choices. In fact everything that we do in life is governed by our choice.
While I am not in any way saying that it is someone’s choice to receive minimum wage! What that person can choose is to do something about it. Just because you may be meant to like something or do something does not mean that you actually have to do it.
If you think back to your childhood you will probably remember just a little intolerance to that which your elders and in many cases betters told you to do!
Eat food to lose weight
People who feel that they may be overweight may often go on a diet, which involves eating considerably less that you had previously. Apart from the massive cravings that one may endure, you can actually start to eat less than is required to provide the energy you need to function normally.
The person’s mood starts to tumble, with less energy and seemingly nothing positive in their life. At this stage they can be quite likely to give in and return to exactly the life that they were trying to get away from.
So what went wrong? While trying to starve the parts of their body that wished to reduce, they also starved the parts of their body that they needed to enhance.
When we eat food that is not good for us – Junk food and we also decline to exercise, our bodies lose the fitness and health that the proper food and exercise regime would give us.
Did you know that muscle while heavier than fat actually burns energy? Feed your muscle because muscle does not like fat, in fact it will steal energy and bulk from fat stored in your body just to keep itself alive.
The right food gives you the energy to exercise. With exercise you burn fat and increase muscle, which in turn burns more fat. This is a wonderful circle of excellence that helps sculpt your healthy body from the surrounding excesses that cause people to appear overweight.
Remember we all have six-packs – just sometimes the fatty tissue gets in the way and we just can’t see or feel it.
And whatever you do decide to do with your physical body, for goodness sake be easy on yourself and enjoy eating some junk from time to time, unless of course you are training for the Olympics. Well even then, I knew a few Olympians who would pig out on the odd pizza!
This article is not meant to supplant the many excellent books and courses on nutrition and exercise. Instead what I am trying to demonstrate how easy, with the appropriate motivation, it can be for anyone to achieve the physical body they want.
And yet so few people seem to give any thought to performing the same exercise on the mind.
Cut out mental junk food only diet for your mind
With mental junk food we don’t see the physical consequences right away. When our minds are constantly filled with negativity and bad news we start to decay.
Someone who wishes to create a healthier physique will watch their diet and exercise. Why is it that many people seem to forget about what they put into their mind through their eyes and ears?
So what is Junk food for the mind? I would simply define it as being anything that, when taken in excess can actually damage a balanced perspective on life.
Let’s take the news for example. There is an old saying that says that “no news is good news”. Why is that I wonder?
Have you ever looked at your average newspaper and counted how many positive items there are on the first few pages.
Listen to the radio – it talks about murders, car crashes, budget overspending and many other gruesome facts before they may be a mention that some starlet just got married again for the 8 th time.
TV is even worse, not only do we get to hear all the depressing garbage that should not really affect us, but we get to see the edited highlights of the most gruesome aspects of it.
The motto in today’s media is; “if it bleeds, it leads”
What about the great soaps we see on at tea time , when everyone gets home after a long day. Sad families going through all the same troubles we all seem to face – anger, violence, infidelity and generally banal story lines.
So why do we like watching these? It may be because we see people that are as large as life, whose lives seem even worse than our own lives.
Really inspiring us to create dreams of success aren’t they. In reality watching your average soap is like someone who is maybe a stone overweight, who might want to get a healthier body back, spending an hour a day with people who are 4 stone overweight, so that they don’t really feel overweight at all.
The final form of mental junk food comes from negative people . Either try and avoid them or just try and distance yourself from their comments. Just because you may go into a well known fast food outlet does not mean that you have to eat 4 quarter pounders!
So instead of feeding your brain with junk food, what should you be doing?
Feed your brain with energy
“Look good, feel good, do good” As I already discussed with you, we all seem to clearly understand that it is important to be physically in good shape. We can think clearer, we have more energy, we can appear more attractive and we enjoy our leisure time a lot better.
So what about putting the same amount of effort into our brains? Imagine f you were able to feel really positive about most things everyday. How do you believe you could cope with the wobbles that life throws at you if you were able to view them objectively and immediately start looking for a way to improve the situation?
So how should we feed our brains and with what?
- Being physically healthy ensures that we have a good flow of oxygenated blood in our brains to facilitate clear thinking. How do you function when you are tired or hung-over?
- Exercise your brain regularly. Watching TV or films all the time leaves little scope for us to think creatively, since all visual images are created for us. Reading on the other hand requires us to create the visual images in our minds. Have you ever read a book before watching a film and thought that the lead actor was all wrong? Maybe they did not fit the image you had created in your own mind.
- Doing cross word puzzles or number puzzles can create additional linkages in your brain, which means that when you come to learn new subjects, you will find it much easier to take them in and remember what it is that you have learnt.
- Listening to or reading educational and motivational pieces can give you some great insights into positive ways of thinking and looking at new situations. It is definitely much easier to copy a strategy that has proved successful for a number of other people than to have to try and figure it all out for yourself. This is why autobiographies can be so illuminating, especially if they are about someone who has had success in a field that you are interested in succeeding in.
- Playing cards or board games can be both fun and excellent mind exercise.
- Learning details about your favourite sport. Many people seem to be able to memorise great sporting moments or dates in relation to their favourite teams, this can be great brain exercise.
- Learn new languages, or if you’re new to a country make sure you are highly proficient in that countries language. Linguistic ability can also help expand your brain power considerably.
When all is said and done it is definitely true that laughter is the best medicine. The release of positive chemicals into your brain can do more for your mental state that any drug, legal or illegal can ever do.
No matter what it is you strive for, always ensure you do it with a light and happy heart. Try to ensure that you are not aiming to be a perfectionist in all that you do. Live life a little on the edge. Eat some junk food, watch some really banal TV, skim through the glossy magazine, do something stupid every day.
Our true maturity comes from knowing the time and place to be immature. So go on, have a little fun today!