I’ve posted about diet mentality before… I had an epiphany a short while ago about it when I realized that diet mentality was a feeling and thus could be controlled by thoughts, but I didn’t have a clear idea of how I might work with/apply that epiphany…

But then yesterday, it happened…

I’ve been struggling a lot with the thought “I should be eating protein” which I modified to “I prioritize protein in my diet”. But the interesting thing was the followup I wasn’t acknowledging which was “Because diet gurus tell me it’s important…”. <<< - that, my friends is diet mentality

But, yesterday, when I was thinking about becoming someone who practices exceptional self care I was researching lowering blood pressure and I read that. A long-term study concluded in 2014 found that people who ate more protein had a lower risk of high blood pressure. For those who ate an average of 100 grams of protein per day, there was a 40 percent lower risk of having high blood pressure than those on a low-protein diet.

Now when I think about prioritizing protein my thought is “because it supports my goals and my vision of my future self”. The feeling that evokes is not ‘restriction’ or ‘rebellion’ (against diet rules). But, feelings of ‘self control’ and ‘self reliance’ and ‘nurturing’

The Act doesn’t change… eat more protein… but the impetus and the feelings around it does - and THAT is how to get away from diet thinking!

Bonus thinking... I'm also going to approach this (this time) from a 'level up' perspective. Instead of setting my goal at 120g of protein overnight...I'm going to look at how much I was eating and just look for the smallest change that will level up my protein intake that I can. And do that over and over again until I'm at a level that supports my goal of having healthy blood pressure.