#38: Your Mental Diet: What Content are you Consuming?

Hey Fitness Friends,

I’m sure most of you have heard the saying “you are the sum of the 5 people who surround yourself with”

There are many variations of this phrase, but the point is that the people you surround yourself with matter.

They have a big impact on the hobbies you take on, the jobs you get, when you have kids, and a bunch of other major life events. They help shape you into the person you become.

This week, I’m going to talk about how I think the same is true for the content you are consuming.

Weekly Action Point

According to a 2019 survey conducted by the CDC, only around 10% of adults in America are eating the recommended daily intake of vegetables (Source).

So, this week for our action point, we’re gonna eat some vegetables.

We aren’t going to do anything crazy. The goal here: for either your lunch or your dinner every day, add in a vegetable that you wouldn’t usually eat.

Even if you already eat vegetables and are in the 10%… you can probably eat more veggies, and eating more won’t hurt anything.

Make a point of purchasing some vegetables when you go grocery shopping this week. They can be fresh or frozen, it doesn’t matter.

Or, if you don’t want to eat them with lunch or dinner, enjoy them as a snack. There are loads of vegetables that are delicious on their own.

I love raw sugar snap peas. Pair them with some cottage cheese and you have a phenomenal mid-morning snack.

How your content consumption makes up your mental diet

Time spent consuming content is at an all-time high in this modern society.

Data from 2024 shows that the average global social media user spends 2 hours and 24 minutes per day scrolling (USA is at 2 hours and 14 minutes per day, 10 minutes below the global average. Go us!).

But social media is just one type of content.

We also consume books, movies, Netflix series, podcasts, YouTube videos, and more.

Content is essentially always surrounding us. People constantly have something in their ears or a screen in front of their faces.

Which is why I wanted to write a newsletter on the topic.

I would argue that the type of content you consume has a bigger impact on your life than the 5 closest people you surround yourself with. It takes up such a huge percentage of our time, so how can it not have a huge impact on our lives?

Ask yourself, what kind of content are you consuming?

Do you feel that it is positively impacting your life? Helping you become the person you are trying to become?

I want to encourage you to find content that motivates you and pushes you to become a better person.

Maybe find a great personal development podcast (I have a ton that I listen to if you want recommendations) or a book that teaches you something.

Also, it’s important that you are tailoring your social media algorithm to show you content that aligns with your goals.

If you told me that you have fitness goals and are passionate about losing weight or gaining muscle or improving flexibility or whatever, does your social media feed reflect that?

Your social media feeds show what’s important to you. If you aren’t consuming fitness content on your social media feed that educates you and inspires you to reach your goals, something might be missing.

Here’s a screenshot of the For You feed on my Instagram currently. Any guesses at what might be important to me currently?

You can be intentional about training your social media algorithm to avoid mindless scrolling.

Anytime you come across something that doesn’t provide any value to your life, you can click on the “see less of this” option, which will decrease how much of that type of content you’re shown.

Similarly, liking, commenting, and interacting with posts that align with your goals will show you more of that content.

Shaping your algorithm has the power to shape your life, in my opinion.

The point of this isn’t to say you should only be consuming productive content.

Watch the show you enjoy or waste some time scrolling through pointless funny videos. There’s a place for that as well.

I’m just trying to say that you should be aware of it.

Sprinkle in some personal development content that aligns with your goals and the person you are trying to become.

Books, podcasts, YouTube videos, Twitter accounts, etc.

It can have a huge impact on your outlook on life.

Ben’s Best

Here’s another awesome sweet potato bowl. My favorite part about sweet potatoes is that there are so many different ways you can eat them.

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I watched this YouTube video about using your time more efficiently in the evening after work. I thought it had some good points, so I wanted to share.

Have an awesome week!

Remind yourself that you are doing awesome :)

Ben