Break Free From Dieting with a Beginner’s Mindset
Break Free From Dieting with a Beginner’s Mindset
"The Japanese Zen term shoshin translates as 'beginner's mind' and refers to a paradox: the more you know about a subject, the more likely you are to close your mind to further learning. As the Zen monk Shunryu Suzuki put it in his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970): 'In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's, there are few."
A Beginner's Mind approaches situations as though you are "literally" a beginner, regardless of your experience. You can set aside your perceptions and assumptions and start with a "clean slate."
A dieting mind is a closed mind that is unwilling to consider different ideas or opinions. As an expert dieter, you believe you know how to achieve your ultimate goal of weight loss through following the rules, an extra dose of willpower, and ignoring your body.
While the number on the scale may allude to you or be fleeting, you believe you know what to do, except that the result is the same. The result is a perpetual self-defeating diet cycle. You endure this cycle on the premise that you have to lose weight to be healthy and that a thinner body is a better one. I know; I have been there! I, too, believed it was the only way to be.
Imagine that your beginner's mind allows you to unlearn your dieting rules and negative thoughts about your body. You get to create an alternate perspective that you are allowed to eat, you are good enough, and you can have autonomy and be the expert on yourself.
The practice of Intuitive Eating is all about a beginner's mind. It brings you back to being the baby you were, who was born an Intuitive Eater. As a baby, you didn’t judge your body and were driven by curiosity. You had a mind-body connection that knew when to eat and how to stop when full. When your needs were met, you were satisfied.
It is now that when we have unmet needs, we blame it on our food. Food is only the messenger, and a diet can't "fix" our needs; we need to dig deeper than that.
With an open mind, you can have that again!
How do you develop an open mind?
Question Everything: From curiosity comes awareness, the beginning of change.
Try a Perception Shift: From “I hate my body” to “I can learn to accept my body.”
Challenge Your Convictions: Is it true that I have to weigh “x” to be healthy? Is there another way?
Consider Another Approach: Focus on actions and behaviors, not the destination of a goal weight.
Find a “Reverse” Mentor: A coach who can offer you a different approach to solving an “old” problem, aka the diet that continues not to work.
Shift From Thoughts of Failing to Signs of Progress: what can you learn from this experience?
