Why, why, why am I doing it? Why I hate my body? I know what’s good and what’s not good for my body. So why am I doing things that I know are hurting my body?
So, in this episode of Life Unfiltered, I’m sharing some of my current struggles and what plans I have to turn the situation around.
Enjoy the video!
You can read the script in case you cannot watch the video. The text is below the video.
Script
Hey, hey, welcome to Journey to freedom channel! My name is Armin and I’m inspiring people by sharing my own journey of becoming the best possible version of myself and creating the life I have been dreaming of.
In Life Unfiltered series I’m sharing my journey in its unpolished without making things look better as they are and without hiding any secrets from you.
In this episode, I share how every single week I’m falling off from my ideal plan and what I have finally decided to do to stay on the needed track.
Why It Is So Hard To Make Any Change?
Many of us are facing daily struggles where we cannot keep promises that we have made to ourselves. Is it some new habit we want to build or maybe some bad habit that we want to get rid of.
No matter how much we try to convince ourselves to make the change because we know how much it can benefit us but still, we are not able to pull it through.
Maybe for a day, maybe for a week, we can stick with the plan but then we are going to find all sort of excuses not to do it and it gets harder and harder to continue until eventually, we are back where we started.
Later in the video I will explain why it happens and why it is so hard to make any change in our daily routine even if we know we can benefit from the change and it can improve our life quality a lot, but first let me share my own current struggles or changes that I want to make and I’m having a hard time to get done? There are three main things that I would like to change or add to my daily routine.
My Biggest Struggle
One is my eating habit, which I know is killing my body the most. I’m trying to follow the intermittent fasting diet. And it’s not actually a diet, it’s more of eating habit with a restricted time window. The Intermittent fasting is a type of daily eating routine where you eat the same amount of calories that you usually eat but you do it in a specific time window.
The usual schedule for intermittent fasting is the 8-hour window for eating and 16-hour window for not eating. So, during those 8 hours, you can eat as you want but the rest of the day you are not allowed to consume any calories at all.
In addition to that, I also like to eat as healthy as I can without breaking my budget. This includes no processed foods, no sugar, no white wheat.
During the first 4 days of the week, it’s not hard to stick with the plan but … but when the weekend arrives, everything falls apart. Especially when I have kids at my place.
First, the intermittent fasting flies out of the window. We like to make movie nights together so it means I’m eating way later than I usually would when I follow the intermittent fasting plan. Usually, I eat my last meal before 5 pm but during weekends, I’m eating even after 10 pm sometimes.
Healthy Foods Are Flying Out Of The Window Too
But this isn’t the biggest problem actually because next morning I can move my breakfast a little bit further. Not much but still an hour or two as my kids are waking up quite late. The biggest problem is that with intermittent fasting schedule, healthy foods are flying out of the window too.
For example, we are eating ice cream almost every weekend and some evenings I’m also buying cookies from the store. And that is where the biggest problem lies.
In the grocery where I do my shopping, they are selling cookies by weight and as they are very cheap and there is no restriction how much you can put into one bag, I’m buying a pretty big portion of them.
And when we are watching the movie, I just keep eating them. I know that they are not good for my health and they are killing my body slowly, but I cannot just stop. They just taste sooooo good so I’m taking another one and another one and another one until they are all gone.
After I have eaten everything, I feel so bad in my stomach. My stomach feels so heavy and it’s even a little painful. And even if we have healthy snacks like carrots and cauliflower, I still cannot stop until I’m completely full. I just cannot stop when there is still something on the table to eat.
So this is my biggest struggle at the moment. And it has been my nemesis for a very long time. I just love sweets and I won’t stop eating them until they are all gone.
And for example, in parties where they serve a cake or something similar, I’m just taking a piece after piece until I cannot fit anything in me anymore. After which I feel so terrible again.
My Metabolism Is My Blessing And My Curse.
Because I have a very good metabolism, I can eat as much as I want and whatever I want without gaining any weight. So, my metabolism is my blessing but also my curse at the same time. No matter how much I eat, I’m not gaining any weight. Everything is turned into energy or goes out the same as it came in.
Because of that, there is no need for me to stick to any diet and I can just eat anything I want. And the downside or the curse is exactly that. I know that certain foods are doing no good and are actually hurting my body and wellbeing but as I cannot see the benefit immediately it’s so easy to drop the idea of a healthy lifestyle and go back to old habits.
If I would gain weight immediately after eating too much, I know that I cannot do that. I cannot eat certain foods and I cannot eat too much. But as I’m not seeing anything changing and I only know that there is a health benefit somewhere in the future it is not big enough motivation for me to stick with the plan.
So, this is the biggest struggle I’m having at the moment. And I cannot stop repeating to myself: “Why, why, why am I doing it? Why I hate my body? I know what’s good and what’s not good for my body. So why am I doing things that I know are hurting my body?”
Most of my friends think that I’m eating very healthy and I’m having one of the healthiest lifestyles but as you can see, we all have our dark side.
And again, this is one of the reasons I decided to make this Life Unfiltered series. To show that nothing is as it seems to the outside viewer. We all have our hidden secrets with what we are struggling every day.
Other Changes I Want To Make
But enough of that. The second thing that I know has tremendous health benefits, is a cold shower in the morning. Building this habit goes a little bit easier as I can stick to it 5 days a week but I’m taking a break from it every weekend. But I would like to make it as an everyday habit no matter the time and place.
The third is a daily exercise. I know how much a daily exercise, no matter how small it is, can boost your immune system and increase overall health. But still, I’m having trouble to stick with the plan.
The Reason Why It Is So Hard To Make A Change In Your Life
So why I cannot get those things done, even if I know how beneficial they can be? The answer is actually very simple. This is how our mind has been built.
Our mind has been built for us to survive and to survive now at this moment. It doesn’t know the difference between the past, the present or the future. It does not understand that doing something now can benefit you later in the future. It only knows what is happening now and everything that is uncomfortable now at this moment will be labeled: “Stay away, it’s dangerous”.
I think many of you have experienced a situation where you have started to build an exercise routine but after a couple of days, you start to feel weird pains in your body. And I do not mean muscle pain that comes after the exercise. Maybe you have a minor headache or maybe your shoulder or knee starts to heart for no reason. This is your body’s response to the change that you decided to do. Because it is “hurting” the body at the moment, your mind will label it: “Dangerous” and it does everything in its power to convince you to stop this madness.
I like to bring up this example when I have a discussion about this topic. Humans are only species on this planet who are pushing themselves out of the comfort zone to get some benefit in the future. So, no wonder that we have a hard time to make any change in our life because nature has built us this way.
Thermostat Of The Body
There is a thing called homeostasis which is like a thermostat of your body. You set a thermostat on a specific temperature and whenever the temperature is above or below that point, it lowers or raises the temperature of the room to the temperature you have set.
Your Homeostasis works the same, it monitors the vital functions of your body and keeps them in a so-called safe zone. And those functions, for example, are: your blood pressure, PH balance of your blood, the temperature of your body and so on. But it also monitors your daily habits and behaviors and whenever you are trying to change something in your daily routine, it tries to bring you back to the previous state.
The good side is, that like with the thermostat it is manually adjustable. When you do something long enough, you will move the setpoint closer to your new daily habit or routine.
For example, if you have been working out for some time already and then when you make a break, you will start to get restless and anxious because your homeostasis has moved to the place where it thinks that it is normal to work out 4 days a week for example. And when you break that habit, it will try to bring you back to its setpoint.
So, the good thing is, do something enough time and you will set your homeostasis to a new level. Your aim is to just stick with the plan until your comfort zone has been set to a new point.
Sticking To The Plan
And this is what I’m aiming to do to get out my current situation. And for that, I’m creating a new challenge called: “Building new habits”. More about the challenge in my next video where I go deeper into what this challenge will be exactly and how I’m going to do it.
If you are facing similar struggles and don’t know how to get out of this endless cycle of starting and failing, you are very welcome to join me in this challenge. Or you can create your own in Journey To Freedom’s forum and I will try to help you to the best of my abilities so you would come out as a winner in the end.
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Thank you for watching and I hope to see you in the next video.
Peace and much love to you all!