Our Diet Is Not Just The Food We Eat

The food that we eat is not the only diet.

Right now, I am writing this post just after I had the biggest cheat meal with dessert that was very high in sugar. It reminded on how I had completely killed my workout.

Then, the reminder of killing my workout reminded me about the topic of diets.

Then it got me thinking about the other kind of diet – the one that is usually forgotten about and overlooked.

It’s a diet just as important as the physical food diet for our bodies.

It’s our mind diet – and yes, that’s a thing.

Taking Care of Your Mind Just Like Your Body

It’s pretty much common sense that in order to have a healthy body, we need to eat healthy, exercise, get enough sleep, and just taking care of our health in general.

And all of that is great because if our bodies are feeling weak, we can’t really expect to have the energy to do what we set ourselves out to accomplish.

Is someone really taking care of their body if they are continuously eating a lot of non-healthy foods? Of course not.

So, can someone have a healthy mind if they’re continuously letting so much negative input come in? – No. It’s the same idea just like with our bodies.

I mean, if we knew that a certain food had poison, we wouldn’t eat it because there’s a very high chance that we can die from it. We’d want to stay away from all sorts of poisonous food at all times. We wouldn’t even want to touch them.

But then when it comes to our minds, we all at one point had let junk in and let it easily influence us.

The only difference in this instance is that we can’t literally die from it, but still – how can we expect to have a healthy and positive mind if we keep putting junk into it?

So if we want a healthy mind, we need to get rid of the junk. It’s just like how we would get rid of junk food first in a food diet.

Mind Food

So what can “feed our mind”? – It’s everything that we read, listen to, watch, and associate with. They are all considered “mind food” that would be fed into our brain.

Just like with feeding ourselves with regular food, the more healthy food we eat, the healthier and stronger we become.

It’s the same with feeding our minds with mostly positive input. These may include books, podcasts, or inspirational/motivational content. The more we feed those in our mind, the stronger our mind becomes.

The exact same occurs when feeding ourselves with junk food. The more junk food we eat, the more the result would lead to the opposite of fit and healthy.

Again, it’s the same with feeding our mind. Examples may include social media, negative opinions of other people, or bad news consumption. The more our mind is fed with all of that, the more negative our mind becomes.

That’s why it’s worth to be mindful of the input that is being fed into our minds. One of the reasons why some may not do this is because it feels like it doesn’t really make a difference in our lives – but that is actually not true.

I’ll give you an example why – I watch a lot of crime documentaries on Netflix and I have watched so many of them that I had become super cautious everywhere I go. I find myself questioning every pile of leaves I see while walking thinking that there may be a dead body somewhere, – my mom told me that I’m thinking that because I watch too many of these TV shows.

You see, my actions and thoughts in these situations were influenced by the shows that I watched, and I didn’t even notice them! I didn’t even realise that I was acting that way because of the shows I was watching.

We may not know it, but all the input that is put into our minds would eventually influence our own lives.

Just like how eating one hamburger won’t instantly make you gain weight – you gain the weight when you’re consistently eating it on a daily basis.

The same with how smoking one cigarette won’t instantly make you look like an 85 year old – that would end up happening if you kept smoking on a regular basis.

It’s the same exact thing with our minds. All those small things that seem so insignificant would eventually be noticeable in the long term. Everything we do counts.

What we watch counts

If there is a TV show that constantly makes you feel bad about yourself, it may be time to cut that out. Just like how you would cut a particular food out of your diet if it’s making your stomach hurt every time you eat it.

This is not to say to never watch TV again, because that could never be an option for me as I love to sit and binge watch different shows once in a while.

The idea is that we simply become more mindful on what we are watching, and know when to stop watching. It’s the same as knowing when to stop eating dessert once you hit your maximum serving based on your diet plan.

What we listen to counts

This goes from music to the opinions of other people. For example with music, how many times have we gotten a song stuck in our head?

If you have had a song stuck in your head, how did that end up happening? – it was because we kept hearing it over and over again.

Imagine if we replaced listening to music with educational or inspirational podcasts. Imagine what will keep getting repeated into our minds. Imagine if the content of those podcasts got stuck in your head just like how a song would.

Who we associate with counts

I won’t go too much into this, but how many stories have you heard where someone gave into the peer pressure of doing something that they didn’t want to do?

Someone may be peer pressured to do something they don’t want to do because they don’t want to feel left out. They are surrounded by a group of people who have those bad habits and vices.

But what if they were surrounded by a group of people who had good habits and goals in their life? What if they were peer pressured into instilling those good habits? The power of association may be stronger than we think.

Food Tracker

Anyone who had ever went on a journey to make changes to their body must have experienced tracking everything they eat. Just like how someone would track steps or calories, we can track what we are feeding into our mind.

We can feed the mind whatever we want and it’s either going to be positive or negative input. Obviously, we want to feed our mind more positive input if we want a healthier and more positive mind.

However, just like any other diet, it’s not always going to be perfect. Just like when it comes to cutting out junk food from our food diet, it doesn’t mean that we get rid of it permanently.

When you’re on an actual food diet, there may be times when we can have a treat here and there, as long as we don’t make it a habit to continuously have it and let the amount of treats surpass all the healthy food we are already eating.

Ultimately, just like how taking care of our bodies will help us in the long run, taking care of our minds is just as important. You can have a healthy body and can be physically capable to do anything, but it is a negative mind that can end up becoming an obstacle to what we want to do.

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