Master Key Experience Week 17: Food for the Body and the Soul

This past year I’ve learned a lot about food–food for my body, and food for my spirit. I’ve been amused to realize that food is food–whether it’s physical to feed my body, or in the form of words and thoughts that feed my soul. Either way, food is crucial–whether I avoid it and don’t perform at my highest and best, or overindulge in it and get bogged down.

FOOD FOR MY BODY. In January 2020 I signed up for Noom’s psychology-based tool for getting and staying healthy and slim. The app works like a coach in my pocket, always there to refer to. Daily lessons take about 10 minutes to read. We learn to apply the 5-6 bite-sized lessons and create a toolbox of practical actions that build strong habits of one kind or another. I love that Noom is based on sound psychology and scientific research about how our minds and bodies work separately and together. I was able to start and/or strengthen habits of mindful eating, consistent exercise, better sleeping, positive self-talk, better attitudes toward food, and strategies for dealing with things like discouragement, unhelpful friends and family (when it comes to temptations), and cravings. Inside the Noom app I got a personal coach called a “goal specialist” who is just a click and a text message away to answer questions, hold me gently accountable, make suggestions for the goal of the week, and shore me up when I need that. Also inside the Noom app is a forum where other “Noomies” assigned to a group coach answer questions, say what’s working for them, offer inspiration, share funny experiences, encourage each other, and celebrate victories.

Noom became a powerful framework for positive change. I’ve shed and kept off 43 pounds with just 7 to go to my ideal weight. I’ve locked in habits that I will keep for the rest of my life because I have now experienced the difference they make. I’m eating a mostly plant-based diet because I have learned to fix all kinds of yummy and filling combinations of fruit, veggies, and grains. I incorporate meat and oils in a healthy way. I eat mindfully at a nicely appointed table and savor each bite instead of skipping meals, eating on the run, and/or inhaling food mindlessly. I give myself wind-down time before an earlier and regular bedtime because I’ve learned the impact of sleep on weight management. I walk outdoors or on a rebounder first thing in the morning and in the evening and incorporate more movement throughout the day and evening, counting steps. As a result I’m really loving my leaner, lither body!

FOOD FOR MY SPIRIT. You’d think that with all that food-based change going on all year I would have realized sooner the food and eating similarity between Noom and the Master Key Experience/Master Mind Alliance that I began in late September of 2020. But it wasn’t until I read Lesson 17 this week that the similarity–one with food for the body and the other with food for the soul–became obvious.

Notice how Haanel describes food for the soul in words equivalent to physical food: “object of its attention,” “matter of importance,” “information,” “basic principles of things, the heart of things, the spirit of things,” and “the real substance.” He describes the process in terms similar to eating: “absorb,” “set in operation,” and “turned within.” He even starts out making the comparison between food/body and object/mind:

21. …As food absorbed is the essence of the body, so the mind absorbs the object of its attention, gives it life and being.

22. If you concentrate on some matter of importance, the intuitive power will be set in operation, and help will come in the nature of information which will lead to success.

31. Thought ordinarily leads outwardly in evolutionary directons, but it can be turned within where it will take hold of the basic principles of things, the heart of things, the spirit of things. When you get to the heart of things it is comparatively easy to understand and command them.

32. This is because the Spirit of a thing is the thing itself, the vital part of it, the real substance. The form is simply the outward manifestation of the spiritual activity within.

MKE Lesson Week 17 by Charles Haanel

Starting MKE, I noticed the many similarities in structure to Noom and even asked if the creators of Noom had taken the Master Key Experience! There are daily readings, an app for logging activity, a robust website full of tools and helps, a personal guide, group sharing and activity in the Marco Polos and group Zooms, underpinning from science and psychology, motivation, habit formation, and the proven success of students. In addition MKE has a weekly lesson, an introductory video, a workbook, and extensive notes to go with each webinar with time for questions and comments at the end.

But I find it really interesting that they both deal with food! They both give specific instruction on how best to feed the body in the one and how best to feed the soul in the other. In both the instruction influences daily food choices and eating.

In Noom I focus on 3 tasty and nourishing meals and snacks. In MKE I breakfast on a set of readings, I lunch on a set of readings, I dine late on a set of readings–some familiar, some new to add seasoning. The protein of my MKE food is my Definite Major Purpose–my strong desire and heart reason for being on earth–and I read it with enthusiasm out loud those three times. In Noom I choose a variety of snacks. In MKE I “snack on” a confidence-building futuristic press release, a movie poster of coming attractions, an audio of a meaningful tune playing behind my voice reading my DMP, and hundreds of index cards to flip through during the day, shuffling them to get interesting combinations and energizing mind movies of places I’ve been, people I’ve loved, things I’m grateful for, and accomplishments from an early age.

In Noom I focus on drinking enough water throughout the day. In MKE I focus on positive thinking and speaking, expressing no opinion unless I’m an expert in that area. We even call this our “mental diet.”

In Noom I exercise my body. In MKE I exercise my mind in a number of scientific ways that create flow across brain synapses because the MKE program deliberately incorporates all the forms of learning–spatial/visual, musical, interpersonal, intrapersonal, mathematical/logical, linguistic/verbal, and athletic. Just as one example, I constantly and actively seek connections between the shapes and colors all around me as I go through my day, linking them to the goals and Personal Pivotal Needs (PPNs) I associate with each shape and color that I have put onto flash cards next to the words I read aloud or silently through the day. Multiple daily actions and associations like this create activity across the brain’s corpus collosum where the two hemispheres of the brain (right brain and left brain) interact. I recognize, relate, assimilate, and apply (R2A2) so that I become a “Superior Observer,” so necessary for driving the activity deep into the subconscious which will then work constantly toward my abundant future. Together these exercises activate something called Neurological Associative Reactive Conditioning (NARC) which trains my conscious and subconscious to attach pleasure to activities crucial for my goals so that my mind compells me in every way possible to keep doing them and attach pain to not doing them. What a total brain workout!

In Noom I use psychological principles to establish and lock in lasting habits around food and eating to make my body efficient and strong so that I can be at peak performance. I learn to recognize foods in three categories–green foods full of water so that I feel full and satisfied when I eat them, yellow foods, and red foods. In MKE I use psychological principles to establish and lock in lasting habits around the mind and thinking right thoughts in the right way so that my mind is efficient and powerful enough to give me the self-confidence I need to achieve the Definite Major Purpose I focus on. I learn to use the times of day when the brain is at its most receptive, capitalize on the power of words, activate the power of emotions tied to the words, and stoke my burning desire. As a result I’m really loving the power of my new mental habits, my greater consciousness, my greater self-confidence, and the kinds of authentic magic (so-called “coincidences”) that are beginning to happen daily for me and others in our Master Mind Alliance.

As you can see, 2020 and now 2021 have been exceptionally powerful in my life. I am so grateful to have the right kind of food for body and soul, to be eating in the right way, AND TO BE GETTING AMAZING RESULTS!

Tell me what you eat, and I will tell you who you are.

Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin