You need to ditch this dieting belief right now.
This week I wanted to talk about a dieting belief that you need to let go of. It’s something that I see holding people back from getting to their health goal and staying there.
You can watch the video I made about this below or keep scrolling if you prefer to read.
It’s time to ditch this dieting belief that you need to do things perfectly and be perfect.
Aiming for perfection is holding you back.
This is for you if you think that you have to eat perfectly in order to be healthy. Or you have to do everything perfectly in order to be able to lose weight or eat better or get fitter. If you’re constantly looking for the perfect diet or the perfect diet plan to follow, you’re going to struggle. When you think you’ve gotta change everything then you try and change too much.
Human beings are creatures of habit.
We don’t like to change, we like to stick to our day to day habits. We like to stay where it’s comfortable and do what’s easy. That’s why changing habits is really hard. So if you try and change too much you’re not going to be able to stick to it for very long. I see this over and over again. Dieting isn’t sustainable because it’s too different to what you normally do. It’s too much of a change, it’s too drastic – especially when you think you have to get it all right. You’re just gonna keep keep trying new diets then failing at them, if you think you have to get it exactly perfectly right.
‘All or nothing’ doesn’t help you.
I see this ‘all or nothing’ mentality get in the way for so many people. They think they’ve either got do it all perfectly; they’ve gotta eat exactly as the plan says or they’ve completely failed. There’s no in between. This mentality is just not necessary. Healthy eating doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to get it all right just to get weight loss started or to get fitter. A few small gradual changes can make a really big difference as they add up in the long term.
A relapse doesn’t have to be a collapse.
Even if you’re focusing on making a few small changes, you might be inclined to think that if you slip up one day, then that’s it! You’ve completely failed and that gets in the way of you changing forever. If you believe you’ve failed when you have a bit of a relapse then yeah you probably are gonna fail. You’re more likely to just give up and go back to your old habits. But if you can recognise it for what it is – it’s just a little relapse, a slip-up, not the end of the world.
One day won’t make a difference.
It’s just one day, or even if it’s a week or a whole month, it doesn’t have to make a difference in the long-term. Sometimes slip-ups do drag out – you go on holiday, you have loads of ice creams or you drink loads. Then you come back and maybe that holiday behaviour carries on. But even if it goes on for weeks and weeks it’s only a collapse if you give up on it completely. if you can just recognise what’s going on and pick yourself up as soon as possible then it doesn’t have to be the end.
It’s just a blip and in the grand scheme of things, in the bigger picture it won’t make that much difference, because it doesn’t have to be perfect. Healthy eating is about what you do 80% of the time, it really doesn’t need to be 100% of the time. You can have a whole day of just completely overdoing it on the ice cream and the cake and the alcohol and everything and in the grand scheme of things it’s not going to make that much difference.
Draw that line as soon as possible.
If it all goes tits-up just draw a line and get back on track as soon as possible. Ditch all that dieting guilt. Forget about guilt-tripping yourself. Just draw that line and think about what can you do next. What’s the next step for you? What’s the smallest habit you could change that would make the biggest difference and focus on that.
Remember it takes practice to turn that little tweak into a new habit. You have to just keep going, making that change over and over again until it becomes second nature. A little bit of a blip here and there isn’t going to make a difference in the in the grand scheme of things. It’s what you do most of the time that makes a difference in the long term.
Healthy eating doesn’t have to be perfect. You don’t have to be perfect.
Ditch that dieting mentality, because you deserve better.
Need help to ditch dieting forever?
Want to eat normally again AND lose weight healthily? While still enjoying the cake & chocolate? Hell yes!
I will help you ditch dieting forever, either with my 1-2-1 support. Or if you prefer to work independently, you will learn all the skills I teach my 1-2-1 clients, on my ‘No More Diets’ online course.
Freebies!
My Weekly Round-up! AKA; what I’ve been up to recently…
- Tea of the week has been the old faithful Early Grey, I missed it while I was on holiday!
- I missed posting this blog last week (sorry if you were looking out for it!). I have no other excuse than I’d reached my limit with the summer holidays. My brain was frazzled and I couldn’t focus on work all week.
- We finally had an electrician round to do some electrical work that we’ve been trying to get sorted all year! Our usual electrician was all booked up and we couldn’t find another. So we kind of gave up at the start of the year. It wasn’t anything exciting, but a few things that have been bugging us like getting a socket fitted in the pantry cupboard. Sam uses it for his beer-brewing stuff and it was annoying having to trail a cable from the heat-pad across the kitchen. It’s always a relief when you sort out those little annoying things – we’ve been renovating this house since 2017! We’ve done most of the big stuff, but there are loads of little bits n bobs still to do. Plus half the bathroom!
- Once the electrical work was done, it inspired me to get on with decorating the inside of the pantry cupboard. I also decided to do the inside of the landing cupboard too. A couple of jobs that don’t seem like they’d make a big difference, but it feels really good to have sorted them. I spent half the weekend filling holes and cracks and sanding the walls first. It was quite a big job in the end. It kind of made up for the fact I’d not got any work done last week!
- I’ve read another book to add to my list for my reading challenge ’22 New Books in 2022′. Completely different from the last one, ‘The Pharmacist’s Wife’ by Vanessa Tait. A dark tale of Victorian oppression and addiction. I enjoyed it as a bit of fairly easy reading, although as I say, a bit dark.
- We haven’t managed to do any more hill walks since our walk on holiday. This past couple of weeks have been about going on a last few playdates then getting ready for back to school fun. We were just about ready! It was also Genevieve’s 7th birthday – how have I been a mum for 7 years?! Time flies when you’re having fun! Check out the wonky cake I made for her birthday – it made me laugh so much that the oreos were sliding all over the place! (Photo below)
- I’ve enjoyed getting back into going for my walk along the brook after the school run. The first day it was bliss – I saw an otter swimming across the brook at one of the beaches. It was so cute!
- Bird Nerd Report: I’ve not seen many interesting birds in ages, but then I saw a kingfisher twice down by the brook. I was worried they’d all disappeared! Then on the way home I saw a kite flying over our house – never seen them fly over there before!
It was tasty, but a bit wonky!
