You likely have misconceptions as to why you don’t eat healthy.

Being a health coach, I know firsthand how many struggles women have when it comes to eating healthier.

I help women with a variety of eating struggles, including binge eating, emotional eating, restrictive dieting – the list goes on and on.

Each woman I coach has a different story and reasons why they have formed unhealthy eating patterns.

And most of these women blame their inability to change on a few common factors:

 

• They don’t have enough time

• They don’t know what to eat

• They’re not in the best environment to eat healthy

• They’re “addicted” to sugary foods

• They don’t know when to stop eating

 

While at the surface, these factors seem legitimate, they are missing the mark.

The real reason that most women fail to eat healthier is much deeper and way more simple.

Whether we eat healthier or not comes down to our brains and our thought-patterns about the way we eat.

Until we understand this, our healthy eating efforts will be for nothing. We will eventually self-sabotage.

To explain myself further, let’s first understand where things go wrong for most women.

The Moment We Fail to Eat Healthy

Most women who want to eat healthier will focus on taking the right actions.

So, they look for a solution that is very action-based.

These will normally look like meal plans, diet regimens, or weight loss programs.

It’s the mentality of, “if you eat A, B, and C, you will gain results X, Y, and Z”. 

Seems simple right? 

Unfortunately, what normally ends up happening is even the most capable women end up self-sabotaging and not following those action-based plans to eat healthier.

And these capable women will make this mean something negative about themselves.

Which is totally understandable.

We’re given these seemingly simple eating plans to eat healthier and lose weight.

So, when we can’t complete them, it’s frustrating to say the least.

Well, luckily for you, this isn’t your fault.

Turns out, your brain is wired to not follow action-based plans right off the bat.

Especially when it comes to changing your eating habits.

How Your Brain Works

In case you weren’t aware, your thoughts produce your results in life.

This isn’t some law of attraction, woo-woo- type of thinking here.

It’s just the way the world works.

You can observe the sequence of events through this model:

 

• Thoughts cause your feelings

• Feelings cause your actions

• Actions cause your results

• Circumstances are neutral

 

For more on this, be sure to read this blog post.

In short, your actions do not alone produce your results in life.

Which means you can’t simply choose to change your actions with food to produce different rules with your body.

Your actions are caused by your feelings. 

How you feel will determine the actions you take with food.

And how you feel results from your thinking.

This concept can take some time to sink in, but start examining every area of your life to see where this is true.

So, now that we know this, we can understand why our efforts to change our actions with eating are set up for failure.

When we don’t first change our thought patterns accordingly.

Willpower (And Why It Doesn’t Work)

To clarify further why forcing actions won’t work, we need to touch upon willpower.

The concept of willpower is heavily glorified in our society and in the health industry.

According to many sources, if you don’t possess willpower, you’re just lazy.

Which isn’t the truth, at all.

This outlook doesn’t keep in mind the way our brains actually work.

Wilpower is defined most commonly as “the control exerted to do something or restrain impulses”. 

And the truth is, our primitive brains aren’t designed for us to manipulate and control with ease.

If you fight against yourself, you will lose every single time.

You need to find a way to manage your brain so you can complete the tasks you want to.

This is called self-coaching, which at its essence is simply addressing your thoughts.

You need to observe what you’re currently thinking that is producing the result you have with food.

You then need to brainstorm what thought you need to be thinking to produce the result you want with food.

None of this requires you to force yourself through willpower to take certain actions.

Willpower will always run out. 

Your primitive brain will take over and cause you to self-sabotage.

Don’t fall into the willpower, punishment-thinking trap. 

It never works out long-term.

There is another way that isn’t rooted in frustration and self-punishment.

What to Do Next

You are now aware of two key concepts:

• You cannot complete different actions without first addressing your thoughts.
• Willpower doesn’t work long-term – you cannot force yourself to complete certain actions without managing your brain.

Now that you know this, you can understand how it’s not you that has been failing to eat healthy all these years…

…it’s the diet industry that has failed you.

All of the action-based solutions don’t work.

You need to explore your relationship with food yourself so you can begin taking the right actions with food.

This requires you to observe your thought patterns daily.

What thoughts are leading you to take the action of eating unhealthy?

What thoughts would lead you to take the new action of eating healthier?

If you feel resistance to this new type of practice – that is perfectly normal.

As high-performing women in today’s society, we often want the quick fixes and action-based plans.

But my job is to give you a solution that works long-term.

So your time isn’t wasted on practices that don’t serve you.

I can’t wait to see what you do with this mindset shift.