The Mind is not a Bucket

I see this mistake so often that I figured it was finally time to write about it.

Someone has started trying to eat better and exercise more. They're off to a good start, cutting back on the junk food, getting some workouts in. Everything's looking up.

But about 10 days in things get tricky. The body feels tired and weak. The cravings get stronger. And an insidious thought pattern starts to assert itself. It goes something like this:

"I've been working so hard, my body really deserves a break so it can rest and recharge."

or

"I've been so good about my food choices, I need to let off a little steam and have something 'naughty'.

At the root of these thoughts is a philosophical conceit that is rarely examined. These are all based on the idea that the mind/body is a bucket that gets filled and needs to be emptied in order to be filled again.

Let me explain.

In the first example, the person feels that they have been "filled up" with exercise, and needs to take a few days off so that they can come back stronger.

In the second, the mind is seen to be filled up with saying no to temptations, and saying yes just once will drain the bucket and allow the psyche to start fresh.

These are all very nice ideas that have the unfortunate quality of being completely wrong. Your mind is not at all like a bucket.

Your body and mind are organic, and they behave like every other organic thing in nature, they work in cycles, rhythms, and patterns.

When you're trying to change your dietary and lifestyle choices, you're really changing your patterns. And for a new pattern to really take hold and become your pattern you have to keep repeating it until it becomes ingrained in your psyche. This is why it's so important, especially at first, to not compromise your new healthy choices. Not even once!

What feels like an urge to empty the bucket is actually your old pattern struggling to maintain its grip. Acquiescing to that will only confuse the body and mind. Instead of making progress you'll be spinning your wheels and wondering why you can never lose that last 15 pounds or gain that tone in your midsection.

So let's say you have a pattern of decompressing after work with a few beers. You've established this pattern over many months, if not years. When the end of work rolls around, your body and brain start setting up to receive that cold dose of calories and alcohol. You've decided it would be a better idea to replace that after work beer with an iced tea and some fruit. The first week you do this your mind will be an active participant, and it will be strong enough to stick to the new plan. But the body will continue to hit all the triggers for "beer after work" relentlessly for at least two or three weeks, and the mind's willpower inevitably slackens. You start to get that "just one to drain the bucket of craving" feeling.

Now, if you go for the beer on one of these days, you've sent the body the message that the week of iced tea was an aberration, now over, and the old familiar pattern can continue. You'll find it very difficult to go back to your iced tea routine. The mind will have to get its gears moving all over again just as it did in the beginning of the exercise. The time between "emptying your bucket" will get shorter and shorter and within a few weeks you'll be back to the daily beer pattern.

This is very ineffective, frustrating and confusing to the body, and fills you with an unpleasant guilt that will turn even your favorite beer into a bitter pill.

A much more successful method is to lay out a long term plan for establishing new patterns and not deviating from that until your body has accepted the new world order. In other words, cold turkey.

This is where it's very helpful to set one month challenges for yourself. For example, "I will not drink a single beer in the month of June." A month is enough time to give your body a good chance of rinsing the old pattern out of its system. When you feel your mind start to wriggle around the rule, making excuses about it being a "special occasion" or the need to "blow off steam" or "de-stress" know that this is the pattern trying to reassert itself. Smile at it and let it pass. After all, your mind is not a bucket. It's a harmonic wave pattern.

You'll know you've successfully laid down a new pattern when the old one doesn't even occur to you. So in our beer example, if you're getting home and not even thinking of having a cold one, you're free! If however, you're having an internal fight "I'd love a beer, but I'm going to have the iced tea because I know it's better for me," then you're still in the middle of your battle. Persevere.

Some patterns take longer than others to change, but for food and exercise, a month is usually enough to get you on the right track. The next time the first of the month rolls around, give yourself a target and stick with it through the whole 30 days. And once you've done this a few times, you'll start getting really good at seeing through all the tricks the mind plays as it tries to continue its patterns. Then you'll be ready for bigger and bigger challenges.

But above all, don't fool yourself into thinking that skipping just one workout or indulging in just one of your junk foods will somehow make things easier. In fact it will only make the road longer, steeper, and more exasperating. And it's a long tough road to begin with...

But stay on it and you'll get there!

Talks with The Deflator

There's something that a lot of PCPers go through, and even some people who are just thinking about doing the Peak Condition Project.

It's the conversation with The Deflator. The Deflator is that person who will never have anything good to say about you trying to be a better person, or starting something new. We all have them in our lives and at times we all are them.

Often people are caught off guard by the wave of negativity a Deflator can unleash. So I thought I'd list some responses you can call upon if you get stuck in one of these conversations. There are two responses for each, a skillful one that will make you sound wise and reasonable, and a jaded one that is perhaps best left unsaid. Let's do this!

The Deflator: But you're in pretty good shape! You don't need to do something like this.

Skillful Response: You're right, I'm lucky to be in decent shape. But I want to feel even better, so I'm giving this a try. It'll be fun!

Jaded Response: I guess pretty good is enough for some people. But nothing great would ever happen with that kind of thinking.

The Deflator: This seems extreme. Why can't you go with a more sensible program?

Skillful Response: I've tried a lot of programs, and learned something from each of them. This one is far less extreme than most of them. Just diet and exercise!

Jaded Response: Maybe it's time to stop taking 1 step forward 2 steps back approach and break my body out of the processed food nightmare of modern eating.

The Deflator: You're going to do that crazy diet?

Skillful Response: It's not so bad, it's just a lot of getting back to basics, fruits, vegetables, stuff like that.

Jaded Response: The crazy diet is the one YOU eat! Have another chili cheese french fry why don't ya!

The Deflator: But you can't drink!? Come on, that's too much!

Skillful Response: I know, it's going to be an interesting experience to see how my body reacts, and I'll have to learn how to socialize without hitting the sauce!

Jaded Response: The fact that just thinking about someone else giving up alcohol makes you so jittery perhaps says more about you than me.

The Deflator: You know after it's over you're just going to gain it all back.

Skillful Response: This program is a total lifestyle change, so hopefully the changes will stick. I'm ready to break out of these bad habits and live my best life. Your support would mean the world to me!

Jaded Response: Thanks for the vote of confidence, jerk. Believe it or not we're not all going to make the same mistakes you have.

The Deflator: You're just a big person. Accept it and stop fighting nature. (Or for those ectopmorphs out there, You're just a skinny, bony person, accept it and count yourself lucky!)

Skillful Response: I feel like that sometimes too. But the truth is I've never really gone for it like this. A total overhaul of how I eat and exercise. I'm excited to see what happens, maybe under this skin there's a new me no one's seen before.

Jaded Response: Maybe the reason I've always been like this is unhelpful negative comments like that.

The Deflator: But my trainer says that you have to do x, y, and z.

Skillful Response: Yeah, I've heard that too. The truth is the body will respond well to a lot of different plans. This one seems to be a good fit for me.

Jaded Response: I don't take second hand advice from someone who's as out of shape as you.

The Deflator: Don't you think this is a little vain?

Skillful Response: Sure, there's a part of it's that's vain. But who doesn't want to look and feel good? And if vanity gets me to have a longer healthier life, I can deal with it!

Jaded Response: You obviously don't have much vanity. Have you looked in the mirror lately?

The Deflator: It just seems so hard! I could never sign up for something like that.

Skillful Response: Yeah, it's going to be a challenge. But I'm ready to be challenged. I've been coasting for too long now. It'd be great to know you were cheering me on.

Jaded Response: Don't you see that avoiding anything hard is what got us into this mess with our bodies!?

The Deflator: This is probably just some scam.

Skillful Response: I've researched it and everything seems on the up and up. Let me give you the website address so you can see if anything seems fishy.

Jaded Response: This from the person who bought the _________? (List dumb thing The Deflator signed up for or purchased)

Don't let The Deflator get you down. The truth is, when someone makes a decisive change for the better it's very threatening for the people around them. It means your relationship is going to change, the way you spend time together is going to change. And it makes the person stuck and not progressing at all look bad. Humans are incredibly sensitive to the nuances of group dynamics, and when the status quo is threatened up will come the excuses, the derision, and, sadly, the ostracism.

All we can do is stand our ground, hope that The Deflator joins us once we've shown that it's not so scary on the other side. And watch out for The Deflator we all have within us.

Keep it positive people!

De-Lurk!

Sometimes when I'm feeling industrious (a once or twice a year occurrence!) I sit down at the computer and check out the numbers of people reading the blogs and visiting my sites.

Every time I'm blown away by the number of lurkers out there. From my own small sample group of sites (this PCP site, the Kung Fu Body, The Mindfulist, the Knowledge Workers Survival Guide, Yoga Garden, Wellness Begins Here) I estimate for every 1 comment or sale there are 150-200 eyeballs that pass over it.

There's nothing wrong with lurking. After all, if you tried to respond to every piece of content you read online you'd never make it past your morning cruise through your bookmarks. But I want to ask everyone to make a special effort to interact with the people now working hard towards their wellness goals on the Peak Condition Project and the new Kung Fu Body.

Here's why. If you take the time to respond to some random news story you might give the reporter something to think about and you'll further the discussion, but that's the end of it. However, if you take the time to leave a supportive comment on a PCP or KFB blog, you can really change someone's day. The people going for these fitness goals are just like you, they're not rich or famous, they don't have access to special equipment or trainers, they're just out there living their lives and trying to be as healthy as they can be.

It gets quite lonely doing this kind of work. You have to say no to a lot of delicious food. You have to move your tired groggy body through the daily workout, and you have to find something to blog about even when your inspiration ebbs.

But when someone takes the time to leave you a comment, even something like "You can do it! I'm supporting you!" it can unleash HUGE amounts of energy and positivity into the process. You can literally, with your comment, get someone thousands of miles away off the couch and into their workout. You can help them say no to that tempting dish that will derail their diet.

You know how on telethons they say stuff like "Your donation can make all the difference!" but deep down you know your 10 bucks doesn't really make much of a difference. Well, when someone's struggling through their 90 day project, one comment really can make all the difference.

I know you only have a certain amount of time "currency" each day to spend commenting on the web. If you want a lot of bang for your buck, consider spending that currency here, on people's blogs. It just takes a second, it's free, and you can brighten someone's day and help them to get the change they want for their bodies and their lives. And when you do something like that, you can't help but feel a little brighter yourself.

So click one of those names you see on the pages. They're real people and would love to hear that you've got their backs!