I heard a story years ago that when the musicians got together to record songs for Live Aid that there was a sign on the door of the studio that said “Check your ego at the door” That is a great intro to this article.
Ego is a double edged sword. As we all know we have ego to protect ourselves at the vbery least. We know that we are good at certain things and our mind will pump us up and pump up our abilities by using the ego.
The bad side is that we are often not realistic and our ego will hurt us in the long run by helping us make excuses for not doing what we should really know is important.
How Ego Hurts Weight Loss
Lets look at an example of this ego working against us. Let’s say that you are 20 pounds over. Losing 20 pounds will often not seem very important but in actual fact that 20 pounds could be robbing you of a better lifestyle and shortening your lifespan. Also thinking that you are “only” 20 pounds over may mean that you have no good reason to exercise, heck if you aren’t fat then you do not need to exercise.
Well that kind of thinking is dangerous.
On the other hand my ego tells me that to be the kind of person that can speak to people about fitness means that I have to be fit. I can not go more than a couple of days without knowing that I would be a hypocrite for not working out.
Ego to do with eating is even more dangerous than exercise. If we eat badly and then go a day eating well we may want to reward ourselves with a nice fattening snack.
After eating that snack you feel like you let yourself down but it was your ego that said to eat it and your ego that was mad at you for it.
Instead the best thing for us to do is to actually check our ego at the door. If you take some time at the beginning and end of the day to be a realist then it should help you to eat better and exercise more.
It is hard for us to live without our ego but if we can just make a list of the things that we know are important. Let’s say write down a few health goals in the area of eating and exercise and then with those goals also write down why these goals are important in the short and long term.
Just this one action alone will force us to do more of the things that are important and not let our ego get in the way
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