1)The Bio Joy Diet – Stage One Reduction. More about the name “Bio Joy” here.
Can “Bio Joy” really be the cure?? Loving what you eat is not about using it as a source of joy. The emphasis needs to shift.
The goal of the Bio Joy Diet is to identify what biological drives resonate with us the most and turn that into a productive healthy pursuit. When we use our hard-wired biology, then we do not have to create artificial (and therefore fleeting and impermanent) motivation. Nor do we have to rely on determination, which requires mental energy and fortitude, the levels of which can be depleted at different times by other things in our life, and thus is also impermanent.
The Bio Joy diet is about getting back to natural patterns that our modern world has taken away from and live a biologically authentic life.
The food plan is about getting as close to the biological natural food state. The farther we are away from our biological roots, the harder it has become.
In stage one of the reduction phase, the Bio Joy diet does endeavors to eliminate anything processed. We have to count calories because we simply have access to too many. It also includes one hour per day of intentional physical activity.
We have to do the best with the tools we have available today, understanding that this is not about perfection.
2)The Bio Joy Diet – Stage Two Maintenance
I write about it here: Motivations can change, evolve, and sometimes reach an end, especially when you are at a “goal weight.” So, now what?
What keeps me going is to reinvent what motivates me anew. Set a new goal? Sure. But a goal, once achieved, comes to an end. I have had (and still do have) exercise goals like how many kilometers I can walk each week or each month. Or a goal of walking more this year than last year. Or recently, I have had a goal of hitting 10,000 all-time kilometers walked since signing onto the RunKeeper app for the first time, (which I will reach in about 4 days, then what?)
Finding (and re-finding) my daily motivations is an ongoing process from which I do not want to ever reach an end. I have found that what really motivates me at a deep level may be individual to me, but that finding that motivation is what allows me to stay on my current path.
In the past, going externally or outward to find my motivation by mimicking someone else’s motivation, or following someone else’s plan, never lasted very long. Instead, I have needed to go inward and find what really works for me. Adopting someone else’s plan only works temporarily. Someone else’s plan has been a starting point maybe, or a guide, but the whole reason why I called this blog the “Bio Joy Diet” is because I find that going internally to look for my motivation usually connects with something that motivates me on a biological level. We have biological imperatives: survival, territorialism, competition, reproduction, quality of life-seeking, and group forming. It’s the “quality of life-seeking” that I have found provides me the most sustained motivation. When I am constantly trying to improve my own life, which has that biological imperative connection, that is what sustains my motivation the longest. In the past, I have wanted to lose weight for a special event, or lose weight for a holiday, but those events come and go. The biological imperative for quality of life-seeking is a constant. I make maintaining the quality of my current health a daily constant goal, and I feel motivated.
I also wrote out it here. Just counting calories and keeping track of them with the LoseIt app, and walking more outside with my dog, is a good start. But staying away from “sexy” foods and variable reward is personally what is really helping me stay away from reactivating the overeating I did in the past.
The Bio Joy Diet 