Mental Mastery Response

Please read and re-read this Mental Mastery article from Chris Shugart. It really explains the four stages of the health and fitness lifestyle. Really stages two and three will be the hardest to overcome.

Stage two, Conscious Incompetence is tough and as Chris writes "this is the biggest issue in the fields of health, fitness and bodybuilding." He goes on to give a couple of cures for this stage including self-directed anger. The key though is realization that you are rationalizing poor decisions. Identifying your rationalizations and choosing not to allow them is a direct step to stage three.

Stage three, Conscious Competence means you have taken control of your decisions and are now living a healthy lifestyle. Moving to stage four, Unconscious Competence requires time. Make enough of the right decisions for a long enough period of time and your won't even have to think about it anymore. The trap though is falling back into stage two. If you haven't quite made it to stage four and begin to allow yourself one or two small rationalizations they can snowball and you find yourself back where you began.

Be patient, be dedicated and work your way through the stages.