Food, food, glorious food! I love food, obviously, I didn't become overweight by hating food! I have the attitude towards food that we need to eat to sustain life, so why not enjoy it! This has gotten me into trouble though, which is why I joined the 12WBT, to learn to change my "food 'tude" and make it a bit healthier.
Having good food tude is something the 12WBT has taught me, though I am still mastering the skill. Athletes and coaches are all familiar with the concept of the three phases of skill learning: cognitive, associative, and autonomous. In physical education and skill training, we apply these to a gross or fine motor skill, but they can also be applied to a thought process, or an attitude towards a particular activity. Today I'll be addressing the first phase of learning, the cognitive phase.
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| Exhibit A: A common phase one mistake in learning good food tude! |
The cognitive understanding phase (as it is fully known), is the first stage in which you find yourself having to concentrate and contemplate every particular part of the skill. As an example, say you are learning to juggle. In the cognitive phase of learning to juggle, you will find yourself actively thinking about what direction to toss the ball, with which hand, where you need to put the catching hand, and how long you have to do all of that. It's the phase where it's all a bit daunting and sometimes frustrating, and you'll probably struggle more often than not, and even make more than a few mistakes, but that's normal! The mistake I made far more often that I'm really willing to admit was, like our friend in the burger meme, rewarding myself with bad food for doing good things. Word to the wise: don't do that.
So how does this apply to new attitudes? Well it's no different to learning a physical skill. In the first few weeks of a new health or lifestyle regime, you will find yourself thinking about everything that goes in your mouth, you will find yourself needing to plan out your meals, track your eating, and actively stop yourself from making mistakes in the form of bad food choices.
In the first few weeks of my first round of 12WBT, I was obsessed with food and what was going in my mouth. I was obsessed with logging my calories in My Fitness Pal, and hitting that 500cal/day exercise goal. I would actively have to fight my 'inner teenager' on a daily basis to stop myself from turning into McDonald's or not grabbing that iced coffee from the dairy aisle in Coles. I would also have to force myself to stop at one serve, or stick to the allocated serving size, and of course to stop eating once I had spent all my daily calories. My obsession and inner struggles then began to result in, well, results! This meant my understanding of the process and how it was working had increased, and with practice I found myself needing to think less about the tiny little details of each and every meal, and not having to fight so hard, then before I knew it I found myself in phase 2.
The cognitive phase is imperative in learning, not only so you can learn the motions, but also so you can get a proper understanding of why they work to put the overall skill together, and why the skill is worth learning. Speeding through this first phase of learning is an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot, and while it may seem to take forever for some, one day you will wake up and move onto phase 2 without even realising, and it will make the entire journey that much easier.
So if you're in phase one at the moment, be patient and give it time, and you will be grateful to yourself in the end. Then you'll be ready for phase two, which I'll discuss next week!
To be continued!
xx
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