Unforked

How a Growth Mindset Transforms Your Eating Habits and Nutrition

• Haley Schroth, RDN, LD, CPT, RYT, CMWC • Season 1 • Episode 20

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Can your mindset really determine your success in starting and maintaining healthy eating habits? 

The short answer is absolutely!

In this insightful episode about nutrition and mindset, you'll... 

  • discover the crucial differences between a fixed and growth mindset and how they profoundly influence your nutrition choices
  • explore why so many people struggle to stick to healthy eating routines
  • learn the importance of self-awareness and identify your current nutrition mindset (where you might need support to move from a fixed nutrition mindset to a growth nutrition mindset)

Tune in to revolutionize your approach to nutrition and mental wellness!

🔗 Links & Additional Support


&, Thank you to YOU, the listener, for being here on this journey together.

Haley Schroth, RDN, LD, CPT, RYT, CMWC

Integrative Dietitian Nutritionist for Optimal Mental Health & Physical Performance

Haley:

Howdy friend, welcome to Unforked, an unfiltered holistic nutrition and mental wellness podcast for evolving folks that crave a delicious life of fulfillment. Haley, here I am, your host, a trauma-informed functional medicine dietitian, holistic mental wellness coach and the founder of the Fulfilled Fork. On this show, we dish up insights and activations while learning about sustainable mind, body, soul lifestyle practices. It's sweet, it's savory and it'll spice up your life. To stay connected, make sure you sign up for our unforked email list at thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Thefulfilledforkcom. Forward slash links. Let's dig into the episode. Howdy friend, and welcome back to Unforked. I am so, so, so glad that you are here today. I cannot thank you enough. If you are a returning listener, if you are new here, I am also so excited to have you here Today.

Haley:

We are going to be talking about nutrition mindset. We're going to dive deep into a fixed mindset versus a growth mindset. So what are those? Because most of you are probably not familiar with them, and how do we apply the growth and fixed mindset to nutrition If you are familiar with them but have never thought about it from a nutrition point of view? A nutrition lens we're going to talk about that today. So that is our main course for this episode, but first, before we dive in, I of course want to invite you into the Ignite your Mental Wellness Transformation class. This training is going to help you confidently step into your next level of health with epigenetics and holistic mental wellness practices. So not only is this a training on holistic mental wellness, but it is also a mental wellness assessment, which is fucking incredible, because you are going to get some information about how to actually use all the things you learn. So information isn't personal information. You're going to find out why you may not be at the level of health that you desire to be in. You will also learn the three foundational strategies to sustainably step into your next level of health, whatever that looks like for you, with that confidence and with clarity, so that you can claim your most fulfilled, flavorful life. As a part of the mental wellness assessment, you're also going to discover if you're experiencing one of the top five reasons why you're not seeing results in your health and your life yet. So why are you having a more difficult time implementing nutrition habits and what might be getting in the way of you seeing the results? So that's what we talk about in the Ignite your Mental Wellness Transformation training.

Haley:

It is a juicy one, my friend. You are not going to want to miss it. If you haven't yet signed up for it and seen it, please go ahead and do so. I know you are just going to love it, especially if you are a listener here on the podcast. I, yeah, we're deep diving. We're deep diving in this transformation training, so I cannot wait to see you in there. If you have any questions after you watch it, feel free. Let me know what your questions are. I would love, love, love to hear from you. You can sign up for the Ignite your Mental Wellness Transformation in the show notes and you can also go to the Fulfilled Fork website. There's a big little free training button. You can sign up there if that is your preferred way to find it.

Haley:

Now let's dive in to the main course of today's episode Nutrition Mindset. If you are a human, you've probably tried to implement habits before, right. You've decided at one point in your life that hey, what I'm doing right now isn't working for me. Something needs to change and this is the way I'd like to do it, or this is the way I want to go about it. And then you start doing that thing and then it doesn't work. It doesn't work. So you're probably wondering why it is so common, like it is so, so, so common for most people to fail at sticking to any habit, let alone a health habit, which is, in my opinion, way, way, way harder to stick to and implement than certain other habits. There's no hierarchy, of course, but I have just found in my experience that any time we're making a change, especially with food, exercise and our lifestyle in general, those are the few areas that it is extremely, extremely hard to change our ways in.

Haley:

I do want to mention that the reason so many people fail to stick to healthy eating habits is not about knowing which foods are good or bad. I want you to know that foods do not inherently have any sort of moral value, like at all. The good and bad foods is a construct that you have picked up from being alive, from being on this earth right, and every culture and every family is going to have different foods that are, and every culture and every family is going to have different foods that are deemed good and bad. Every person is going to have foods that are deemed good and bad unless you've done the work around it, or I don't know. I don't know if anyone who has never experienced at least one person in their life like either praising or demonizing a food. I have noticed that almost every single person does this at some point in their life, if not on a very, very, very regular basis.

Haley:

So people don't fail to implement healthy habits from lack of knowledge that that certain foods are healthier for us than others. Like we all know that vegetables are healthy, right, we all know that it's great for us to drink water. Those are very common, like that's common knowledge, right? So if we have the common knowledge, why is it that we still struggle to implement those habits if we genuinely desire to? So it's not about the lacking of desire to get healthier either. You can have plenty of desire to implement a new healthy eating habit, like eating more vegetables, and still never be able to do it if you don't go about it in the right way. So it's not about the desire you can desire all day, but that doesn't mean that anything is going to change, right?

Haley:

So the real issue here often lies in having the wrong nutrition mindset, because everything we're talking about right now is mindset, right. So people start with good intentions when deciding that they are going to implement a new nutrition habit, deciding that they are going to eat more vegetables, deciding that they are going to incorporate more foods that support their mood and brain health, support their mood and brain health. Everyone starts with good intentions, but it's really really really easy to I'm going to put this in air quotes fail right, because I actually don't believe that there's such a thing as failure. I mean, yes, in concept, but it depends on how you look at it. It depends on your mindset around it. So, which is obviously exactly what we're talking about today. So, as you can see, mindset is crucial in nutrition and just implementing any habit in general.

Haley:

As I said before, it's really really important for nutrition because changing our eating habits are just it's just so difficult. It is one of the most difficult things that I have seen people do and I have and I know this because I am a dietician and a health coach and I have people this is the most common reason people see me is, of course, that they're having trouble implementing these new habits. Sometimes it's a lack of knowledge on, like, a certain condition and all these things Like we're not going to go down that, but most of the time, people are having a really difficult time implementing new habits. And why are they having a difficult time implementing new habits? A lot of the time it's because of their mindset.

Haley:

Your mind will give up with, we'll say, healthy eating. So if healthy eating is your goal, we're just going to go super generalized here. If healthy eating is your goal to improve your mood and energy levels, your mind is going to give up when it gets hard or inconvenient or requires effort. Right, because it's just easier. It's easier for your brain to go back to the old habit because it requires less energy, like physically and mentally. Right? Our brains want to be efficient. In general, our brains are looking for ways to move forward in a way that's not painful. Right, and sometimes when we're implementing new habits, it can be painful. It can be.

Haley:

Let's take a look at this example really quick. So if you picture yourself after a long day of work, you're super exhausted, you're hungry and instead of cooking the healthy meal that you had planned to cook, you just toss that frozen pizza in the oven and then you start eating your super sweet, savory Hawaiian pizza. And then you start feeling guilty, you start feeling shameful. You now are going down the rabbit hole in your mind that your brain is just telling you that you're bad at change and you can't stick with any healthy habits because you just had this pizza, right? So this is cognitive distortion. This is all or nothing thinking, and it is a common roadblock that I see in so many folks that I support through nutrition and mental wellness coaching here at the Fulfilled Fork. This is seriously one of the most common things, and for good reason. Right, habit change is hard.

Haley:

Showing up and changing the way we're living is really difficult, and so I want you to know that messing up one time, or even if it's multiple times, you know, maybe you're just having a really difficult time and you're finding yourself in these loops of um. Some folks feel like that it's self-sabotage, right? Oh my gosh, I'm sabotaging myself. Why do I keep doing this? I keep going in this loop and I just can't get out of it. Every time I try and I take one step forward, I feel like I'm taking three steps back, right? So messing up failing in quotes again does not mean that it's game over, that you're doomed and you can't implement any nutrition habits. Right, you can't implement healthy habits. It is just showing where your mindset is fixed, and I'll get to the definitions here in a minute. I'll get to those in a minute.

Haley:

So another example, really quick, is that if you have been chronically stressed for years and you've gained some weight, you've been emotionally eating, you haven't been sleeping really well. You know there's a lot going on. Just wanting to lose the weight is not enough to kickstart those healthy habits like we talked about before. The desire is not enough. But if you truly commit to yourself and your health, that means that you will find ways to make healthy choices even when it gets hard. Maybe it's like adding veggies to that pizza, so having a salad on the side. Maybe you're mindfully you're deciding to mindfully eat it without guilt.

Haley:

This example is resilience in action. This is an example of resilience and being able to be committed and move forward, and so it's the mindset and intention behind the action of eating that pizza that matters the most. Right, it's the mindset and intention behind the action that matters the most. It is the very lack of awareness that fuels your feelings of shame and guilt. So the lack of awareness is what is usually the problem. The lack of awareness has to do with your mindset most of the time.

Haley:

And so here let's go into the definitions of a fixed versus a growth mindset, because I know now you're probably like hey Leigh, you keep talking about mindset but you haven't told me what it means. So a fixed mindset is a mindset that clings to old habits and beliefs because that's how it's always been right. It's like the person who's been doing it for 30 years and says, well, I've always done it this way, right? We all know that person, and so this is usually not the most resilient person, right? They're afraid of change, they're afraid of awareness a lot of the times as well, and this fixed mindset prevents you from developing that resilience. It prevents you from truly committing to your habits, and in this case, healthy eating. On the other hand, a growth mindset is very open to new ways of thinking. It's open to new ways of living, and this growth mindset is essential for the resilience, it is essential for the commitment.

Haley:

So, without the growth mindset, I see people staying stuck in their old habits, in their old lives, in their old identities, while other people around them who have this growth mindset are adopting new habits, and they are just. It's not to say that it's not hard, but they are moving forward quicker and with more ease. Right, because their mindset is flexible, it is growth oriented, and so this fixed versus growth mindset is a concept that I came across from Carol Dweck's book and this growth mindset theory. It really explains why it's not just your abilities and talent that will bring you success in your habits and in your life. What will bring you success is whether you approach those habits with the right mindset. So your success depends on whether you have a fixed or growth mindset.

Haley:

And I want to add a caveat really quick here, because you can have a fixed mindset in one area of your life and a growth mindset in another. And so why I say the problem oftentimes is a lack of awareness is because sometimes we think that we are in a growth mindset in one area, but we're actually not. Sometimes we, without the reflection of another person or a coach, a partner, whoever sometimes we think we're doing a lot better than we actually are. Right? You're in the thick of it and you have a hard time seeing all the trees around you, right? It's like the forest to the tree thing. You know what I'm saying.

Haley:

So mindset is really really, really important for nutrition and for building nutrition habits, building those health habits, and it's really important, this growth mindset whether you have just started building a habit, you're thinking about building a new habit of healthy eating, or maybe you've already implemented some new habits around health and healthy eating, but you're running into edges, you're running into walls where you feel like you can't move forward or you're not quite getting the results that you used to get, or that you're striving towards right, and so having that growth mindset is also really critical when we're in more of a maintenance stage of a habit right, I'll do another episode on that and how understanding human psychology around how we actually establish, build and maintain habits is so important. Establish, build and maintain habits is so important. So I want to go over a few examples of a growth nutrition mindset versus a fixed nutrition mindset. So if you have a growth nutrition mindset, like I mentioned earlier, you're so you're learning and you're adopting. An example here is that you are open to learning about new nutrition strategies for improving your mood and energy levels and adjusting your habits for just overall better health and moving towards your most fulfilled life, right, so that would be the approach that you would want to take for a growth mindset, one example. And so let's say that you read up on the benefits of a plant-based diet, you try to incorporate more veggies into your meals and, even if it's challenging at first, like you're open to learning more about the plant-based diet, you're open to adjusting your habits and strategies. So that's how that would look in action.

Haley:

One example, the next example, of a growth nutrition mindset is seeing challenges as opportunities. Now we're coming full circle, because you heard me say, you heard me say it Failure is a word. Yes, but I don't believe that failure means like quitting right. I see failure as more of an opportunity. So this is full circle with our seeing challenges as opportunities, right? So the approach here is that if you are facing difficulties in maintaining a healthy diet so, let's say, you're having a difficult time eating your vegetables every day acknowledging and seeing this difficulty just helps you redefine and discover better methods and alternatives. So you are now given the opportunity to adjust and find ways that actually work for you, versus what you feel like you should be doing or what somebody else told you works for them, right? So a concrete example here would be despite, like I know, you're busy. So, despite having a busy schedule, you find time to meal prep on the weekends, and so you found that the meal prep has given you an opportunity for healthier eating habits that you never would have figured out beforehand. Had you not found out that, oh, making vegetables at every meal is difficult for you to maintain, right? You would have never found out that that works for you. You would have never found out that adjusting how you manage your time on the weekends sets you up for an incredible week ahead, and an incredible week where you're eating your veggies and you're feeling really good, right? So that's seeing our challenges as opportunities.

Haley:

The next example of a growth mindset is embracing change and flexibility. The approach here is that your nutrition needs can evolve over your lifetime and that you are willing to adapt and change your approach and plan to nutrition as needed. A concrete example here is that you realize that as you're getting older, your metabolism is changing and you've found that you've needed to adjust your diet to include more nutrient-dense foods to meet the changing needs of your body. That's an example of embracing the change in flexibility. The next way we can look at a growth mindset in nutrition specifically is through positive self-talk. This is that self-compassion piece that you always hear me talk about right. That is a part of a growth mindset. Every small, seemingly meaningless, sometimes healthy choice that you are making is contributing to your overall well-being. You know that every little thing you're doing, it's going to add up in the long run Like we're playing the long game here. We're playing the long game with our health. It's not about those quick fixes. So the concrete example here is that, instead of feeling guilty about eating that pizza from our example earlier, that Hawaiian pizza or, in my case, a pepperoni and pineapple pizza, so much better than Hawaiian. So instead of feeling guilty about eating that pizza, you're going to focus on the overall quality of your diet and the overall health habits that you're implementing.

Haley:

The last example of a growth nutrition mindset is having a goal-oriented perspective. What does that mean? So this approach is setting and working towards achievable nutrition goals to help you make consistent progress. It's not that you can't have a goal that feels expansive to you, but we also want to have goals that are helping us to work towards consistent progress. And I don't care how big, hairy and audacious that goal is, if it doesn't align with your lifestyle, if it is not remotely doable, then you're not going to be able to achieve it right. So for me, having this goal-oriented perspective also brings our values into account. It brings our lifestyle into account and our unique nutrition needs. So it's a very tailored approach versus like those one-size-fits-all goals. A concrete example here is that you set a goal to drink more water every single day, and so for the first little while you're tracking your progress, you're celebrating those small milestones so that you can adjust your strategy as needed. Because if we're paying attention, if we are actually monitoring what we are doing, that's where we get the data, that's where we get the feedback that says, yes, this is working or no, this is not working and okay, so let me adjust. So we have to be aware of our goals, like when we're first setting them right. We have to be aware of what our goal is when we're first setting it, and we have to be aware of the goal if it's achievable. If you set a goal to work out five days a week at first, and then you're like holy cow. I've been tracking this and I've only been able to do three consistently every single week, that's great information, and so this is what that goal-oriented perspective is On the flip side.

Haley:

Let's just talk briefly. I'm not going to go into super detail about these. I wanted to focus more on the growth mindset. To keep this episode a bite-sized length, we're just going to breeze through the fixed nutrition mindset examples. So if you have a fixed nutrition mindset, you might be feeling resistance to change. So again, this approach is I've always eaten this way and there's no point in trying to change your eating habits now. Even after you learn about we'll just say the plant-based diet, or even after you learn about your nutrigenomic test, you're like, eh, fuck it, I've always done it this way, it hasn't killed me yet and I'm going to keep doing it right.

Haley:

That's just being resistant to change, and we can be resistant to change for a lot of reasons. So I do want to say that trauma can be a factor here. Culture can be a factor. Of course, mindset is a factor. There's a lot of different reasons why one might be resistant to change and I just think it's so important that you understand the role that trauma plays in being resistant to making certain changes. I won't dive into specific examples, but having the awareness is key.

Haley:

The next example of a fixed nutrition mindset is just being afraid to fail right. So this might be you, if you feel like you, if you try to follow a healthier diet, if you try to eat more veggies, if you try to exercise more and you fail, it's just proving to yourself that you can't make any changes and that you suck and blah, blah, blah, right. So fear of failure is a really big one that I see in clients is a really big one that I see in clients. Most of the time, we feel like if we fail, it will mean something about us. That proving you can't change that means something about you, and so the key here is to dig into well, what are you afraid of? What does it mean if you can't change? Like, what does that mean about you? This is work that I help people with, too, because it's really difficult work to do on your own. So if you need help, if you're struggling and you're noticing oh my gosh, this is an area that I really desire support in reach out to me. We can chat about my services and which services would be a great fit for you. On to the next example is that you might avoid new information with a fixed nutrition mindset, because this is kind of going back to the resistance to change. You might experience this if your thinking patterns are hey, I don't need to learn about nutrition because I already know what works for me, right? This is very similar to the resistance to change.

Haley:

The next example is negative self-talk. So in this fixed nutrition mindset, the approach here would be I can't do it. Healthy eating is too hard. Again, like the I suck, I never do anything right. All of those thought patterns are very common in the population of folks that I see here at the Fulfilled Fork, like when we very first start our work together. Right, and this is something that I used to do. I was. If you know any of my story, you know that I used to be the most negative person ever. Plan for the worst, always, every time. And so negative self-talk can look like criticizing yourself. The people who have anxiety, depression, adhd, bipolar disorder, all these mental health challenges, these are the people that I see having this negative self-talk the most, and I know because I've been there.

Haley:

So the last fixed nutrition mindset example that I want to talk about is thinking that your effort is just not worth it unless it's perfect, right? It's kind of that perfectionism, all or nothing thinking here, and so if this is you, your approach might be well, no matter what I do, my diet won't improve my health significantly. Like, is it really making that big of a difference If I exercise just one time this week? Is it really making that big of a difference If I eat vegetables one time today? Is that really making that big of a difference? I might as well just not have vegetables at all, right? So to recap, the fixed nutrition mindset we've got resistance to change, fear of failure, avoiding new information, having that negative self-talk and just viewing any effort as insignificant, fruitless, right, no matter what you do, it's not gonna not gonna move the dial.

Haley:

So what I want you to do, now that we've talked about the growth mindset versus a fixed mindset, the examples of the growth mindset versus the fixed mindset examples I want you to notice. Just take note you don't have to make any changes, you don't have to do anything about it right now, but I want you to build awareness around where you might see this impacting your life and your health. Where do you feel that you are doing well? So do you have any of those qualities of a growth nutrition mindset? Do you have any of those qualities of a fixed nutrition mindset? Is there a very specific topic that you have a growth nutrition mindset around. So an example of this would be you feel very open and growth-oriented towards healthy eating, as in like eating more vegetables, but your nutrition mindset around intuitive and mindful eating might be a little bit more fixed, right? So again, it doesn't, it doesn't encompass hey, I have a growth mindset and it spans every area of my life like that's amazing. But I bet you there's some, some blind spots that you have. And so, yeah, this episode really helps with noticing if there's any areas in your nutrition and eating habits in particular that are more fixed or more growth-oriented.

Haley:

To recap, the fixed versus the growth mindset when you adopt that growth nutrition mindset, you are being adaptable, you are being resilient, you are open to learning and you are focusing on positive progress. You are focusing on progress, not perfection here. On the other hand, if you have a fixed nutrition mindset, it is mostly characterized by being resistant to changing, being afraid of failing and that critical, negative self-talk. All of this to say that when you embrace a growth mindset, it can abso-fucking-lutely transform your health and lead you to your most fulfilled life, because you are learning sustainable, long-term skills. You are learning how to build skills over the long run. You are learning how to be resilient. You are learning how to be committed to yourself and your goals. That is what the growth mindset will do for you. So that's it for the episode.

Haley:

I would love, love, love to hear your thoughts on the episode. You go ahead, send me a text. There's a link in the show notes. If you have any questions, you can also email me. My email is also in the show notes. If you have any questions, you can also email me. My email is also in the show notes. So let me know if you have any thoughts about this episode. If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them on a future episode of the Unforked podcast.

Haley:

And if you have noticed from this chat today that you desire more support in transforming your nutrition mindset and building healthy habits in nutrition and in health in general, in a holistic way, in a personalized way, that is exactly what I do, my friend. That is exactly what I do, my friend. That is exactly what I do. You, of course, are in the right place. You are a very intelligent human, and so I just want to invite you into receiving support through my coaching services here at the fulfilled fork, if you are ready to chat about transforming your nutrition mindset, if you're ready to dive into building new healthy habits and honestly changing your life in the best way, I invite you to book your mental wellness breakthrough session. The link is in the show notes. That's my introductory session.

Haley:

If you are not quite sure yet if you want to book that session or not, introductory session. If you are not quite sure yet if you want to book that session or not, send me an email and we can set up a complimentary support call where I will get to know you, get to know your situation, and so I can recommend which of my services are going to be the best fit. So feel free, send me an email. If that is you Hope you have a phenomenal day. My friend and I cannot wait to see you on the next episode. Thank you for listening to Unforked. You can find all resources and links from this episode in the show notes at thefulfilledforkcom forward slash podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, we'd love if you'd send it to a friend and rate and review the show on either Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Then email us a screenshot of your review to howdy at thefulfilledforkcom for a one-time credit to use towards our wellness services at the Fulfilled Fork Chat soon.

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Haley Schroth, RDN, LD, CPT, RYT, CMWC

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