Mental Fitness And Its Impact On Your Weight Gain

There are some things that are essential for you to understand if you want to lose weight.

First: losing weight is about 80% what you eat, 20% what you do in the gym. Hitting a new max or adding a new superset to your heavy workouts does not give you the green light to eat anyway that you want. In fact, it is quite the opposite. What you eat can totally undo what you have done in the gym.

Second: weight loss is nearly 100% related to your mindset. Determination, willpower, and the right mental state are all directly influenced by the signals your brain is giving your body, and an unhealthy mind usually means an unhealthy you who will find it challenging to lose weight or gain muscle.

Here are five ways mental fitness has an impact on weight gain.

Willpower comes from the brain

Your brain is where your will to achieve results, as well as the desire to stop at 10 reps instead of your goal of 15, comes from. In most cases, mind over matter really does work. You can push your body to do something, even if you don’t feel like it, with the right mental triggers. You can control yourself, and that kind of determination comes from your brain.

One of the most common things we know about willpower from brain studies is that it is finite; it runs out throughout the day the more you use it. We can, however, train our brains to have more willpower through reducing stress, eating less processed foods, and consciously pushing ourselves to complete difficult tasks that challenge us. This gives us more energy and helps boost willpower; coupled with getting enough sleep and exercising, these methods will enable us to push our boundaries in what we can emotionally tolerate, in the same way, we reach a new max on our deadlift.

It’s all about motivation, dedication and time.

Developing habits takes brain power

Willpower also has a huge influence on our ability to develop good habits and drop bad ones. For instance, you might want to have a cigarette or a doughnut, but you know you shouldn’t because you’ll fall right back into your old patterns of nicotine or sugar addiction. The decision you make is dependent on your willpower. Without a strong sense of dedication, we can’t hope to develop good eating habits, like grabbing yoghurt and fruit instead of doughnuts or pizza, and going for a walk or run instead of reaching for a menthol light.

Addictions are not only damaging to our bodies physically, but they erode our willpower, especially when it comes to quitting these habits. The more you crave something, and the deeper your addiction runs, the harder it is to put it down. While it is often stated that it takes 21 days to make a new habit, in his book The One Thing, Gary Keller states that it may take longer for some habits to be broken or set, as long as 60 days.

The decision to quit, and seeing your decision through, takes an incredible amount of willpower, but it’s worth every bit of suffering you endure to kick an addiction or develop a healthy habit. Taking steps to improve your resiliency, your mental fortitude, will go a long way in making this process easier.

Your state of mind affects your body

There are a number of things that fall under this category, from something as simple as your mood on any given day to anxiety, stress, and depression. These can all affect your ability to structure your diet and exercise, which are key to managing weight gain.

For instance, if you are depressed, you may not want to go to the gym or cook when you get home. This can mean you grab a gas station sandwich or canned chilli on the run, deciding to skip the gym just this one time, neither of which will give you the weight loss, or weight gains, you set as your goal.

You can also relate this to stress when you feel like other things are priorities that take precedence over you taking care of yourself. Allowing yourself to set aside fitness and self-care set back your efforts to establish and maintain habits for your overall fitness goals. The point is that no matter what your state of mind, it can affect your body and your ability to control yourself and exercise willpower when necessary.

Mental exercise affects physical fitness

What are some of the ways you can exercise your brain? You can read, write, meditate, and even engage in yoga or self-hypnosis. One of the most common ways of writing is blogging, which also feeds you socially by building a community that can help hold you accountable to your fitness goals, and offer support and encouragement when you need it.

Getting started in blogging, and having the resolve to make quality posts regularly, requires you to exercise your willpower and mental capacity. It can be tough: composing a thousand words every few days, especially if you’re just getting started, can be a big challenge, but stick with it. Write about your successes in the gym, or your weight control progress. You can also upload free stock fitness images with your post to illustrate the exercises you’re performing, demonstrate proper form, or generate ideas to mix up your workouts. All of these methods will help to keep you and your readers engaged, build a community of support, and increase your mental capacity

Meditation and self-hypnosis take practice too. You can’t just sit down and start to meditate, even with guided meditation apps. You will need to start slowly and build up the amount of time you can empty your mind and truly meditate. It will take willpower, but at the same time, will strengthen your mind, ease stress and anxiety, and make it easier to commit yourself to your physical fitness goals.

Your mind eats what you do

Yes, your diet will have an impact on your body, but it also impacts your mind. Those processed foods we talked about earlier, along with things like caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, sugar, and other addictive substances, will sap your willpower and make it harder for you to concentrate and make good decisions.

Dehydration can cloud your judgement and drain your energy as well. Drinking enough water and taking care of your body is key to increasing brain function, willpower, decision making, and clarity. Your body can’t function without water, but neither can your mind.

Your mental fitness has a huge impact on your weight gain efforts, and if you want to pack on 20 lbs. of muscle, you need to pack in 20 lbs. of brain power. Treat your regimen to improve your willpower the same as you do your plans for leg day, and you’ll be amazed how the results will grow together.

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