Do you struggle to achieve your health goals?
If you answered yes, it may be that you are setting the bar too high.
It is human nature to want things to happen now and with the best possible results. If I had a dollar for every time a client told me they are “an all or nothing person”, I’d be typing this from my yacht in the Bahamas sipping on a glass French champagne!
Just the other day, one of my clients was telling me how she was still struggling with eating too much chocolate on stressful work days, and because of this, she was quite upset with herself. So I tried to get her to see things from a different perspective. In the past, she was eating too much chocolate on an almost daily basis, whereas now, it was only happening once per week or once per fortnight. In addition, my client had also reported she and her family were eating much better overall. I think we can all agree that is a significant improvement.
So why was my client upset with herself? She, like many of us, felt that because she wasn’t being 100% “good”, she was failing.
WRONG!! And this is where so many of us go wrong, striving for perfection.
In talking about not needing to be 100% perfect with eating, I often use the example of painting ones living room. Now, if you’re re-painting your living room, you want it to be 100% right, stuffing up one part of the wall will be visible for all to see forever (or at least until you repaint). The wonderful thing with eating, is that it is ever-changing, one higher calorie meal (commonly seen as “a stuff up”) is not going to leave a permanent mark on your body.
The problem with trying to 100% perfect with your eating, is you can be doing everything as you planned and then someone suggests going for pizza and wine. You could say no, but if you’re like me, and you actually enjoy pizza and wine and you really want to spend time with your friend, then the sensible thing to do is say yes!
Just remind yourself, eating doesn’t need to perfect, you just need to be making better food choices most of the time. Also, life-long healthy eating requires a healthy relationship with food. This approach enables you to build that healthy relationship.
