© 2024 Melanie White
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Are you doing a transformative program and have found that the magic is wearing off after a week, and you’re losing motivation?
I want to share my initial results with you and talk about how to stay motivated while you’re on a transformative program.
I am pretty chuffed with my first-week work in my own transformation program.
I did really well with everything this first week. After all, it’s the honeymoon period of the program where everything is new and exciting.
Here are some highlights.
I did especially well with drinking enough water, and this made a huge difference to my overall energy levels, my hunger, the way my skin looked and felt, and also my mental focus. My digestion has been better and I’ve tapped into my natural thirst and hunger signals.
That was an absolute winner to start with.
The way I managed to succeed in keeping my water intake up was actually pretty simple. I just filled my water bottle up every night so would be ready for the next day at my desk. I made sure to have 2 cups of uncaffeinated rooibos tea each day which added to my water intake.
Plus I had a glass of water as I was preparing dinner each night. I absolutely bossed my goal and my natural thirst mechanism has kicked in, so I will be doubling to two litres of water a day this week coming.
One of the things this has helped me to do is cope with sugar withdrawals.
I have to be really honest and say the first five days without sugar were really hard.
After my birthday where I got a lot of cakes and some fudge and some chocolate, I had developed a bit of a habit of eating chocolate or cake in the afternoon when I had a bit of an energy lull.
But by God did I have some sugar cravings this week. I crave sugar after lunch, I crave sugar in the mid-afternoon, and I crave sugar after dinner.
To cope with this, I used some really effective strategies to get past those cravings and I was over them completely by day five.
These include keeping my water intake up, including enough protein and fibre at each meal, and getting my meal timing right so I don’t need snacks.
That last part is important because snacking, especially on sugar or carb-rich foods, drives false hunger and cravings so it’s important to stop those in their tracks.
Now by day 7 I have been free of sugar or carb cravings for two days!
This is pretty impressive for me because I have long been a fan of having what I call ‘lunch dessert’, plus at least a little chocolate after dinner.
After busting those cravings by day 5, I turned my focus to getting my carb mix right because this is the secret for managing long-term hunger, satiety, energy and cravings – and of course body composition and weight
Once you sort out any blood sugar imbalances which are indicated by what I call ‘false’ sugar or carb cravings, then you can assess natural energy needs and can get a sense of how best to fuel your body for clear thinking and good performance with exercise.
So the past two days I’ve been following the Metabolic Typing fine-tuning process to get a good balance of protein, carbs and fat at each meal and maintain good physical and mental energy, free of cravings and full of energy, completely satisfied for four hours after a meal.
I haven’t gone as well as I hoped with exercise because I had a couple of days with really bad headaches and a stiff trapezius muscle so I had to work around those things.
I also noted I hadn’t planned around my work properly during a busy week and so I was short of time on a couple of days, and not wanting to exercise too late in the afternoon for fear of staying awake all night.
However, I achieved about 80% of my exercise goal this week which is fantastic. That means that on most days I did two exercise sessions per day, in accordance with the specific activities I set for myself.
What I learned is that I need to plan better for exercise.
I had to catch my naughty mind trying to convince me I was too busy to exercise for a couple of days and pushed through using the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 principle.
I wanted to talk a bit about how to stay motivated during a program like this one.
Let’s start with what I’ve seen in many of my clients. The first week of any type of transformation program is exciting and interesting. You’re doing new things, you’re getting some quick wins, and you are also starting to get into a rhythm.
But if you are a veteran of programs, or lacking in self-confidence, you might start to lose focus or find yourself making excuses for things that you are not doing.
Let me just say that this is totally normal. It’s totally normal for you to start getting a bit bored or unmotivated or to feel challenged when it comes to habit upgrades.
It’s normal to feel a bit stuck or overwhelmed at times and feel like giving up. Although this may happen to you later on, it can also happen after the first seven days of a program.
I want to explain what I’m doing to stay motivated during my transformation program
The first point is that you should really choose the timing of your transformation program carefully. It’s crazy to try to do it when you are incredibly busy at work, or when you have a lot of stressful things going on in your life.
Generally, those things mean that you’re at a tipping point of stress and a thing that would normally be challenging can become just a bit too challenging such that you might give up more easily.
Also, when you’re stressed it takes a huge toll on your physical and mental health, including your body’s nutrient status. Your nutrient needs increase, and your cravings for sugar and carbs and fatty salty food all increase when you are stressed. So it makes it a lot harder to improve your eating, just sleep well, and to be able to exercise effectively.
In fact, if you are trying to do something transformative in a period of life like this, you’re more likely to get a cold or flu or to get otherwise rundown and sick and then not be able to complete the program.
So this timing thing is really important – choose a period of your life that is normal, routine, and average, so that you can more easily adjust to the disruption and challenge of the transformation program and face the challenges and discomfort of change without giving up!
Similarly, a bad time to do a transformation program is if you are out of a normal routine.
The reason that this isn’t a very good time to do a transformation is when you’re on a relaxing holiday. It may be harder to persevere or you might find it harder to stay motivated and focused.
One other reason that you should not attempt a transformation while you’re on holiday is that you may be establishing habits outside of your normal weekly structure so that when you go back to that normal weekly structure, your new habits no longer fit into that typical week.
It totally makes sense for you to make changes within your normal routine, where you have more of a fixed schedule each day. That makes it easier for you to stack habits or piggyback habits on top of your existing ones and automate them much more easily.
One thing that’s been really helpful for me is to measure several things each day and really keep my eyes on how much better I am feeling when I do certain things and to reflect on the success of that.
After seven days on my own 50-day program, I have learned a lot about motivation. I realise that I approach each weekend ready to relax after a stressful week and have been tempted to let down my guard because of that.
Documenting this process helped me to see how important it is to have a strategy for weekends to stay motivated to stay on track – or choose to focus on habits that you can easily do 7 days per week – or at least consistently and without any sabotage.
Have you ever heard of the Zeigarnik Effect?
The Zeigarnik Effect states that not completing a task creates mental tension, which keeps it top of mind. The only thing that will ease this tension is to complete the task.
Starting something – like your daily exercise session – is usually the hardest part. If you can start focusing on the task for a few minutes, the brain’s desire to complete it should then take over. So next time you feel like putting off an action, just take that first step, and the rest will follow.
Today I’ve talked about all the things I’ve learned after 7 days on my own transformation program.
I’m still in the experimental phase to see what works and what I can fit into my lifestyle and how to do that, but I’m already seeing amazing results with clearer skin, clearer thinking and a calmer, less anxious state of mind. The mental chatter has all but stopped and that’s been life-changing for me.
I explained the changes I’ve chosen to make – water, food, exercise, boundaries around work, journaling – and how I’ve used journaling and metrics to learn about myself, and stay motivated, and tweak the plan.
This has been such a growth opportunity for me. It hasn’t been easy but it’s been extremely rewarding. I look forward to sharing what happens next week!
Understanding who you are and what you need will allow your business to thrive! If you’re truly ready to break old habits and get out of the rut I encourage you to check out the Habitology membership.
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© 2024 Melanie White