And one more time… Mind over matter.
There is a 70/30 rule that keeps coming back to me and that holds truth in many aspects of my life. Wether it is in endurance sports, in running my restaurant and with my relationship with food.
The 70% represented by mental will power and 30% represented by physical ability to actually perform the task. Do not fear, keep calm, don´t start reaching out for those potato chips yet, I´ll explain:
30% of the physical aspect of a ¨good-diet¨ has been generously explored since the beginning of time. And that from all sides. In form of slim-fast diets, 5-point weight loss plans, 10-point fat burn programmes, 12-point love handle terminators and so on.
As much as the Earth is made up by 70% of water (emotions) and only by 30% of land (science), our nutritional path to good health and vitality is equally unexplored.
To quote Deepak Chopra: ¨The mind is the key to losing weight. When the mind is satisfied, the body quits craving too much food¨ And thats your 70% right there. In 20 tweetable words.
This quote (along with his genius book - What are you hungry for-) have opened up Pandora's Box for me to ask myself some better questions.
Here my top 10-better-questions-to-myself. *Brought to you by my sponsors from Unilever, Nestle and McDonalds (*That is a joke, in case you were about to spit fire on this blog).
My ¨warm up¨ questions to myself:
- Am I in a stable relationship with myself ? Thus, can I trust myself to be held accountable for my decisions?
- Have a nurtured my mind through reading and researching what a good diet is and what benefits it has?
- Do I have support in my path of becoming a conscious and aware eater?
- What do I want to get out of this ? (My WHY)
My ¨on the highway¨¨ questions:
- Am I looking at food as ¨object of pleasure, social lubricant and/or a stimulant¨? Or as ¨good fuel¨?
- Am I hungry ? Or is it time to eat ? (The 5 most dangerous words in the English language)
- Can I cultivate a better relationship with food in order to train the muscles of good decisions?
- Am I willing to accept to let go of some people in my life (non-supporters) and let others in my life (supporters)?
- Do I keep nourishing my mind and intellect with literature, to deepen my understandings on the health benefits of a good relationship with food ?
I invite you to borrow my glasses on how to look at food through those questions.
Hopefully, it will encourage you to ask yourself some better questions too.
Ronny Portulidis, Santa Catalina.