By Dina Aldabbagh

You may look at a lifestyle of daily exercise and healthy eating as something that’s just not your identity. You may think there’s this gap between who you are and who those people are who do those things. And you may believe that these are just the cards you’ve each been dealt in life — those people have an inclination to healthy living and you don’t. That’s just not true. The difference in identity is not one of nature, but one of practice. 

People often have this idea that the way they grew up is what is “natural” to them; that it’s what is “in their nature,” and that anything else they want to be would simply be a performance. They identify with it, saying, “I’m just a fast eater” or “I’m just a night owl” — boxing themselves in. However…it’s not actually a natural identity, it’s just what was learned — before you even knew you were learning it. It started so early that by the time you realized you behaved in a certain way, and that other kids behaved differently, you thought you two were just innately different. 

Many people think that to be any different than the way they’ve always been, it would be “faking” it. Faking being an athletic person, a runner, an early sleeper — but that’s not true. You weren’t just born a fast eater and your neighbor wasn’t just born a slow eater. You were both raised in households where you witnessed different eating habits, and that seemed like the norm to you. People who like exercise don’t just have some unique gene that makes them like it, rather they were raised in a way where exercising was treated as an enjoyable, rewarding experience. Thus, they wanted to repeat it. 

All of this was happening subconsciously, of course. Eventually, said person did it enough times where they could say, “I don’t even know why I like it so much, but I just do.” And then Becky and Tommy listening in felt shocked — “How do you like running? How do you like that pain? It’s so uncomfortable.” But Becky and Tommy didn’t have the basis of making running enjoyable, so all they know is that running equals discomfort. Which means: stay away.

However, the person who’s always loved physical activity had a number of formative moments in their childhood where physical activity equated to joy or pride or fulfillment, or whatever else positive emotion. Maybe their family bonded over volleyball, and physical activity meant connection. Maybe them and the neighborhood kids raced in the pool and they always won, so physical activity meant pride and achievement. Maybe they were the fastest kid in their gym class, so physical activity meant attention, admiration, and confidence. As a seven year old, you’re not consciously connecting why you want more of something. You just have an experience, feel a good thing, and say, “Yeah, more of this.” Then before you know it, you’ve done it enough times that it’s just your identity.

It’s not “your nature” to be a certain way, it’s actually a learned behavior since early childhood that has been repeated hundreds or thousands of times — convincing you that they are not simply “habits,” but your natural state of being. 

That’s just not true. Anything is changeable. Any form, any identity — it’s all malleable. 

The second you understand this, you can free yourself to be your true identity. What is your true identity? It’s the version of you that you want to be — that you’ve probably always wanted to be. The one that in every situation, you have the desire to show up as them. 

The desire to be a healthy person is the most human desire there is. Health is our biology’s preference. However, if you have this desire, yet find yourself struggling to act in ways that support your health, it may not be a desire issue, but an identity issue. You may view yourself as someone who is naturally unhealthy and needs to force themselves to be healthy — who needs to labor. Instead of believing that because you want to be healthy, that means that you are someone who is healthy, you believe you have to perform being a healthy person, since you are already not. 

The identity you see yourself as is the gap you have to close. The habits, thoughts, behaviors, urges — that’s how you close the gap, and it all comes through practice. As you practice it, it gets integrated naturally into your daily life and identity. But the key is not to see these moments of practice as “faking it,” in terms of a performance, but rather as integration of your true identity — the one you want to be.

The practice bit of this is the key. If your body has zero evidence of something, it can’t fully believe it. Your mind is a strong thing, but so is your body. If you consciously know something, but your body feels a very starkly contrasting experience, then the “knowing” isn’t fully integrated. You’d like it to be, but there’s resistance in the body. So all you need to do is give your body some evidence. Show your body what is the truth. 

If you’d like to be someone who enjoys exercise, you just have to make it enjoyable. If you’d like to be someone who prefers to eat healthy, you just have to show yourself that healthy food can be extremely tasty. All your body needs is some evidence. The body learns. It’s extremely smart. If you actively choose to eat a pineapple one day, and love it, your body will remember that “this healthy thing tasted really good — more of that please.” 

Every time you do something like the person you’d like to be and feel something good about it, you’re telling your body, “I’m the kind of person this feels good for.” Which then gets translated to: “More of this.” And every time you do something out of line with who you want to be, and you feel bad, you’re telling your body,  “I’m the kind of person this feels bad for,” so: “Less of this.”

Every time you go to the gym even when you don’t feel like it, and feel good about it afterwards, you’re teaching your body that going to the gym is a positive experience for you. Every time you eat in a way that isn’t in line with your healthier self, and feel bad about it, you’re teaching your body that eating that way is a negative experience for you. The emotions you feel through the practice is just as much a part of the integration as doing the practice itself. This is how it becomes second nature. You do, you feel, and then your body learns.

It all starts with practice. You don’t have to think through the action before doing it, you just have to do it. The integration into your nature comes later. The confidence about your identity comes later. I went swimming the other day as my day’s form of exercise, and while I don’t particularly champion myself as the identity of a “swimmer,” I do like to do it. As I was hitting the breaststroke, I kept noticing myself shifting my hips to the right side because my legs didn’t feel natural to equally extend outward in the way it is supposed to be done. I didn’t take this moment to mean I’m “a bad swimmer,” or “should just stay away from the breast stroke.” Instead, I just did the breast stroke the way I knew it was supposed to be done, even though it felt uncomfortable. It took effort to consciously move my legs in that way and I had to think about it every time. Well, I went swimming this morning and about 10 minutes into my workout, I realized…I had been naturally moving my legs in the breaststroke the way they’re supposed to. I didn’t have to think about it, and actually, I did it without thinking about it. My body learned. 

Don’t buy into imposter syndrome and believe that just because you haven’t been a daily gym goer and healthy eater up until now, that it means that that’s not who you are. You are whoever you show up as. That’s how the world will know you and that’s how your body will know you. If you do something enough times, your body learns, “This is who we are…I guess.” You don’t have to convince yourself, you just have to practice. The practice does the convincing to the body. Eventually, it doesn’t feel like “practice,” like “learning,” like “integration,” and it just feels like “This is who I am.”