How Zen has helped me achieve goals

Morning MFP.

TL;DR - Try Zen meditation for greatly enhancing both exercise and diet discipline.

Zen's something that has helped me tremendously in so many areas of my life, but Zazen (the practice of sitting in Zen meditation) has very specifically helped me with both exercise and nutrition in an immense and relatively immediate way.

To be super quick, the practice of Zazen involves sitting quitely for at least a few minutes (I do between 15 and 30 minutes) in a very comfortable posture (which happens to be bolt-upright but relaxed) and allowing yourself to become completely in touch with the Present. I capitalize that because it's very important, and is the entire focus of Mindful Meditation. Being completely in the Present, seeing, hearing, feeling the world around you without indulging in thoughts of another time or place.

Looking back, I realize that I was only focussed on the present for perhaps 5%-10% of the day,living most of the time at least partially in my own mind. Remembering, imagining encounters with people, worrying about the future, living and re-living anxieties, etc. Think to yourself just how often you are off someplace else, even when with loved ones, while working, driving, etc.

Anyhow, the idea being that being mindful and clear is a practiced skill and habit, just like hitting a baseball or doing Algebra. It requires regular practice, and the more you practice the better you get. It involves experiencing the world directly and FACING every stray thought that intrudes (without emotion or judgement) until it exposes itself for what it is... a figment of your imagination, a delusion.

The directly application of Zen for both exercise and diet is this:

Exercise - Most of the pain of exercise is not actually the pain of exercise... it's the dread of the pain of exercise and the desire for it to stop. Is taking that step of your jog painful and depressing, or is it the thought of the 4326 more steps you need to take before finishing? If you didn't know, by the way, fatigue is literally a mental process. It's your primal mind putting the brakes on becasue you don't see any imminent threat of death right now, and it wants reserves in case there really is a bear around the corner and you need to run again.

Zen it - Face the pain, own it, accept it, relish it even. Every pushup, step, lift is the complete and unique focus of your attention. You are not afraid of the pain and not dwelling on what will happen next. There can be no dread because you only ever have one rep to worry about.

My Example - One of my favorite workouts is the '100 Burpee Challenge', where you simply see how long it takes you to do 100 Burpees. My record at my most fit was 10:14, in the last few months... far from my most fit and before Zen I could only do around 13:00 and spent most of the last 50 wondering if I could do it at all. After applying Zen and FAR from my former fitness level I hit 10:08, and felt far less pain and stress throughout the whole exercise.


Diet - There is, hopefully we all know, physiological and physchological hunger. IE mouth-hungry or body-hungry, want food or need food. Most of us rich and lucky people (you are online reading about how to eat less after all) have only rarely had to deal with actual physiological hunger. At worst, it's a 'OMG I detect trace amounts of hunger, let's throw a bucket of chicken at it!' situation. You want delicious food, you have a habit of eating it, and even when you conciously don't want to your habits are so ingrained that it feels like a monumental task to resist it.

Zen it - Stop, 'look' at your hunger. Is it really coming from your body? Is it a desire to eat something, anything, or is it a craving for the taste of peanut butter? Even if it is coming from your body, how strong is it really? Are you going to perish if you don't have a snack right now, 45 minute before lunch? Will it really take 800 calories to quench this feeling? Examine it, give it a minute before doing anything, and then do what you know is right.

My example - I L O V E good buttered toast. I could have 3+ pieces with each and every meal and not grow tired of it. However, I went off all grains and starches with my wife (meat, veggies, some fruit only) Every morning at breakfast when I had had a couple pieces of toast for the last decade. I would feel that hot bread in my hand, smell the bread, taste it in my mouth. But it wasn't what I was eating, so I had to sit and face every single one of those delusions, those imagined needs and desires, and every rationalization my brain made for why today was the special kind of day where the rules were different and I deserved it just this once. Each time, as I looked at those delusions, they would reveal themselves as just habits and imagined feelings, and fade away.



This isn't easy, this doesn't come quickly, and while it will work with practice, not even dedicated Monks walk around in a constant state of enlightenment. Life is hard, and you'll never be completely free of delusion. But give it a try, and I hope that you find in your practice the fulfillment and help that I have found.