"Be Your Best Friend, My Friend"

A dear friend of mine closed an email to me with this quote.

“Be Your Best Friend, My Friend.”

Reading it filled me with warmth...and after some reflection, I made an important connection to my, and perhaps your nutrition.

So what was it?

It’s tough to eat perfectly all the time. In fact it is pretty much impossible. After all we eat a lot. Like every day. A few times a day!

Expecting perfection may be ok for a bodybuilder...but not for us. (Apologies if I have any bodybuilders checking in today!)

Even more-so, expecting that we will never fall off the wagon, at times, is naive and sets us up to beat ourselves up and rebound in a negative direction.

So today, I want to offer a few mindsets we have talked about. And a few new ones to help us “Be Your Best Friend, My Friend.”

1. Walter Hagen - Widely considered one of the greatest golfers ever, said that he allowed for 7 miscues each round! Each time he hit a poor shot he would say to himself, “There’s one.” This of course allowed him to let it go, and hit a great next shot.

Nutrition has to be the same way. When we have a less than ideal meal, or day, or week….”That’s one.”

2. 80/20 - We have talked about this one before. Read that post for more detail. But a good goal is to have 80% of our food choices be optimal, and 20% less than optimal. Play with those numbers based on your goals.

3. Focus on building your base of healthy meals - What percentage of your meals are routinely healthy? Breakfast and lunch? Lunch and dinner? If you are consistently eating breakfast and lunch, or lunch and dinner healthily, you can afford a few miscues here and there. Continue to grow your base of consistently healthy meals.

4. Be Kind In Your Mind - Speak kindly to yourself with your inner dialogue. When you eat a bowl or a few bowls of ice cream that you didn’t think you should have, choose to think, “It’s all good. I had a great lunch, and I’ll pass on the ice cream next time,” rather than “Mark, you suck. Messed up again. You have to control yourself Mark!”

Self compassion is going to help you reach your goals much faster than beating yourself up. In fact, beating yourself up will send you in the opposite direction...quickly.

I’ll leave you with another golf analogy:*

* I apologize that I do not know its source.

Nobody would hire a caddy to follow them around and berate them on the golf course. And then follow them home and have him continue to berate them in their hotel, in the car, and before they go to sleep at night. But this is exactly what we do in our own minds. We beat ourselves up for “messing up,” when instead, we need to be kind to ourselves, forgive ourselves, and show ourselves compassion.

So thanks Terry for your inspirational message…"Be Your Best Friend, My Friend"....one-minute at at time.

*If you need help with self compassion, there are a lot of great resources out there. One of my favorites is a quick read called, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends On It by Kamal Ravikant. Check it out :)

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If you are new to the blog, I want to encourage you to go back and check out my previous posts, as they serve as the foundation for what we talk about each week.

In addition, if you, or anyone you know would like to take your nutrition to the next level, please contact me about my coaching services.

Here's to the best version of you!