the power of mindset: how your thoughts shape your relationship with food
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There are two types of people: the ones that believe they can improve, and the ones that don’t. Which one are you?
I hear a lot of people saying “I can’t do this”, “I’ll never be able to…”, and “I always fail at this”…. Do you know what I see as the result of this kind of thinking? What I see is that a lot of people are unhappy with their lives. Their dreams are only that, dreams. And they are often caught in repetitive patterns that make them feel stuck and bad about themselves. Doesn’t sound good, does it? What if our mind is more powerful than we think, and by slowly shifting our mindset we can live a more fulfilling life?
What is your Mind set to believe?
I remember one client I had during my coaching training that was quite resistant to change. She would say things like “I don’t like exercising, never have”, “I can’t do that”, “I don’t have time”. This mindset got my attention. She had decided to work with me to improve her health and well-being yet, she seemed unwilling to take action.
Our experiences and environment shape our beliefs not only about ourselves but also about others and the world. This simplifies the world so that life is easier to navigate. This setting of the mind (mindset) influences how we think, feel and behave. Furthermore, since we were kids our intelligence, skills, and talent have been measured to define and label us, which has also influenced what we believe about our abilities.
How does this connect to emotional eating? Let’s think about it. Can you recall what you’ve learned about food, food rules, body image, and emotions throughout your life? How have those learning experiences affected your way of relating to food, your body, your feelings, and even other people?
Mindset and emotional eating
We all create a series of beliefs around food, our bodies, and emotions throughout our lives. These can lead to either a healthy or an unhealthy relationship with those. When we struggle with our emotions and have learned that food brings comfort, but also that some food is bad and our body doesn’t fit into society’s standards, it’s not surprising that we develop mindsets that hold us back from healing.
First, I invite you to think about what your beliefs are around food, your body, and emotions, and how they have shaped the way you relate to them. What are things you tell yourself over and over again that are not serving you and keep you stuck in an emotional eating cycle?
Let’s set the scene: you feel “at war” with food and with your body. You have learned that food serves as a comfort, distraction or to feel the void. In your day-by-day, when something happens, thoughts of inadequacy, failure, or not being enough pop into your head. These unsupportive thoughts result in uncomfortable emotions. And how have you learned to deal with your emotions? Yes, by turning to food.
Unfortunately, this goes further. If you have a fixed mindset, you’ll take this experience as something very negative and will start beating yourself up for “not being able to control yourself”, for “not having enough willpower”, or for “not being disciplined”. This self-criticism can lead you to turn to food again to cope with those emotions, or even as a way to punish yourself. Unconsciously it’s a way to prove that those thoughts are true and deepen the beliefs.
And like this, the thoughts that come to your mind and that you take as a firm reality keep promoting the emotional eating cycle. With this, feelings of being stuck and believing that a different relationship with food and your body is possible, are difficult to believe.
Can you change your mindset?
Mindset matters, and our beliefs about it matter as much, if not more. Because if you believe that nothing can change your intelligence, talent, and skills, if you have a fixed mindset, it’s going to be rather difficult to evolve and work towards whatever goals you have for yourself. What we think and how we think is reflected in our behaviors. We can say that our mindset predicts our success.
There’s something important to remember: you don’t have to believe everything people say, nor everything your mind tells you! What? Yes, this was a huge aha moment for me. It seems so obvious now. But in the past, I identified with my thoughts, what my mind said was my reality, a reality that I couldn’t change. At least in some things.
We think that we don’t have willpower regarding food and exercise, that we are addicted to food, that we’ll never be able to feel in control around food, and that being thinner will make us happier. All those beliefs (and many more!) make it impossible to understand that we have the power to address our issues with food, our body, our emotions, and ourselves.
I think it’s important to understand two things:
1. Our brain’s main purpose is NOT to make us happy but to keep us safe. Change is seen as a danger as our brain doesn’t know what’s going to happen, therefore, staying in old patterns feels more safe (even when these are not supportive and unhealthy).
2. Thoughts and emotions are triggered by an external cue, a circumstance. By identifying the trigger we can decide with intention how to react to it and change our thoughts. If you change your thought, you can change the emotion that’s attached to it and the behavior that results from it.
Why am I mentioning this? Changing our mindset doesn’t happen overnight, nor is it just a decision we make and by following 5 steps we reach an end. And those two facts explain why it’s normal to encounter resistance when working on taking action and changing our beliefs, habits and behaviors.
Changing your mindset is a process that starts with mindful awareness, and that won’t get any results without self-acceptance, self-compassion, and willingness to make changes. So by understanding that our brain might show resistance to these changes, we’re empowered to act in accordance.
So the answer here is ABSOLUTELY, but there’s work to do, work that can feel uncomfortable at times, but that will help you navigate life
Do you have a growth or fixed mindset?
In the beginning, I stated that there are people who believe in change, and others not. Some people believe they can change their mindset to a more supportive way of navigating life, but some people get caught up in their behaviors telling themselves that there’s nothing they can do.
Let’s try to understand what having a growth or fixed mindset looks like, and the possible consequences on our eating behaviors.
Fixed mindset:
People with fixed mindsets tend to hide their flaws and mistakes, they feel ashamed about what they see as failures. Because they believe that intelligence and talent can’t be developed and are innate, it’s not uncommon for them to give up easily. They engage in comparison with others, perceiving their successes as threats, and can view feedback as personal attacks. Altogether, this results in a lack of motivation to achieve their goals.
How does this translate to emotional eating? Well, first, you think that there’s nothing you can do to change your behavior. You engage in emotional eating, and that’s just the way you are, you simply have to accept that fate. Second, you believe that you can’t be trusted around food, you are addicted to it, you have no control, food has morality and your food choices define you, and so on. If we put these two things together, I guess you can see how it’s going to be difficult to address your relationship with food and how you may think you’re doomed.
Growth mindset:
People with a growth mindset embrace their flaws and mistakes and take them as opportunities to become better, this means that they accept setbacks as a part of the learning process. They see intelligence and talent as something you can develop over time, and so their efforts and practice can lead to mastery. For them, other people’s successes are a source of inspiration and feedback an opportunity to grow and apply constructive criticism. Altogether leads to them feeling empowered to reach their goals.
How does this translate to emotional eating? People with a growth mindset see their relationship with food and body as something they can work on and improve. They are open to understanding the root causes of their issues with food and their body and own their story. They know that during the healing process, there will be setbacks that they will see as opportunities for introspection and growth.
Because mindset is something ingrained in us, it’s not always easy to identify those things we tell ourselves that prevent us from taking action and working for what we want. This means that the first thing to do is to bring awareness to our thoughts. Here are some examples of things we tell ourselves when we have a fixed versus a growth mindset:
Change your mindset, reach your dreams
I wish everyone could understand that mindset can be changed, and that we can change those beliefs that hold us back from doing what we truly want and being our true selves. If we did, I can see a world where mistakes and challenges are seen as opportunities. A world where everyone celebrates all victories, big and small. A world where everyone believes in themselves and others too. A world where we support each other and where constructive criticism is an opportunity to evolve and get better. A world where everyone feels empowered and motivated to reach their goals. A world where success is a source of inspiration rather than jealousy or threat.
Wouldn’t this be the dream? I see so many possibilities opening up if everyone worked on changing their fixed mindsets. The best of this, it would not only benefit each individual but also society as a whole.
How can you change your mindset?
1. Tell yourself a different story:
Our actions are a manifestation of our beliefs. You have the power to choose what you think, so you need to pay attention to what you tell yourself and how you interpret it. If when a difficulty comes up you relate to your past story and make it mean something now, the resultant actions will further deepen the belief.
For example, let’s say that one day you find yourself eating because you feel lonely. If you relate to your old story you’ll tell yourself things like “I’ll never figure this out”, “I always do this”, or “I’m a failure, I’m turning to food again”. However, you can choose to change your story and shift your language saying things like “I can learn from this experience”, or “I may not be able to do it yet, but I will”.
2. Turn failures into learning experiences:
Always remember that we all make mistakes, and failure is a part of the learning process. There’s no success without previous failure that teaches you things you can improve and work on. All setbacks have something to teach us so it’s important to bring self-compassion and take time to analyze, reflect on, and identify what works and what doesn’t so that you can redirect your efforts.
Following the previous example in which you find yourself turning to food, you can try to analyze and understand what triggered your emotional eating, the thoughts that came to your mind, how you were feeling, how you responded to the situation, and what you can do next time instead.
3. Focus on the process, not the result:
Aim to never stop learning and growing. Commit to learning about yourself and becoming who you want to be instead of setting goals that prove your worth. You don’t need other people’s approval to be who you want to be.
Let’s say that your goal is to incorporate exercise and aim to move your body 5 times a week. If you go from 0 days to 5 days straight, there’s a good chance that creating this habit will prove to be challenging. To make sustainable changes it’s proven to be better to start with baby steps, listen to your body, celebrate every win that works towards your goal and bring self-compassion and understanding when there’s a fallback.
Take away
How many times have you heard people saying “This is who I am”? While I’m never going to be against someone who accepts themselves, I’ve also observed how that sentence is a reflection of a mindset that can make you feel stuck, unable to grow and become who you want to be, and have the life that you want. And when something gets in the way of your happiness, growth, health and well-being, I believe it’s time to take action so that you can reach your true potential.
Our mindsets are not inconsequential, they play a major role in our health and well-being. It’s important to detect those beliefs that prevent us from moving forward and take action so that you can work on shifting that mindset to something more supportive that works with you instead of against you.
Remember the client I told you about? Changing our beliefs is not an easy task and it demands a lot of awareness and attention. She certainly worked on understanding this and slowly changed her mindset which helped her to be more compassionate towards herself and focus on what she needed the most.
“I have learned so much about myself and the importance of my mental health through my personalized sessions. The sessions allowed me to focus on myself and what I need to do to improve myself. When I started this journey I thought it would revolve around weight loss, but in the end, my mental health was most important to focus on first. For the first time in my life, I received individualized and personal help just for me and how to support and help myself. I have learned how to put routines in place to help manage stress, to focus on and improve positivity in my life, and the importance of recognizing even the small things in everyday life that bring joy and allow one to be grateful. I have learned a set of skills to allow me to slowly shift my mindset and help and improve myself as well as pay it forward.” [Alex D.]
What was your answer to the question at the beginning? Has it changed?
