Learn how to do life!

IT’S HAPPENED AGAIN… The morning after the night before…you’ve just woken up after a binge feeling sluggish and bloated. You step on the scales and it doesn’t lie… you gained 4lbs overnight I know that whenever you’ve successfully lost weight in the past you’ve had to exert a lot of willpower and discipline. It is obvious - your brain has decided, that MUST be the answer! - Clearly that’s what you’re lacking now! Surely if you had more self control you wouldn’t have let yourself down last night……. So, like the good student that you are you knuckle down and resolve to get everything dialed in! Everything needs to be spot on. If you get everything perfect and leave no stone unturned then how can you not fail? You start inputting all your numbers into MyFitnessPal again - honestly this time after having either left out the binge altogether, or tried to fudge the numbers to try to make yourself feel better about it! You want to make up for the weekend so you decide to kick start things off by eliminating all junk food. You keep all your meals to your strict calorie count and you resist all temptations. It takes a lot of focus and a lot of discipline….. The fear is already there, you also worry about situations where you won’t be able to control all the variables - works functions or social events so you decide to pull out of all the ones you can get away with - just for now, just whilst you get yourself “back on track.” AND through sheer force of will you’re doing it! One good meal leads into another, and it’s working! You’re losing weight and back on track again… UNTIL….. … Something happens when that part of you “takes over” AGAIN! Perhaps it’s one of those situations where you’re not 100% in control of the food available and one bad food turns into a bad day turns into a full on blow out! … Or maybe it’s the end of an exhausting week and you need to give yourself a “bit of a break.” You’ve been “good” all week after all. And before you know it the floodgates have opened…again. … Or maybe you’ve been worrying about the weekend all week. History tells you this is when you struggle most and by the time it’s Friday night you’ve already resigned yourself to that fact that you’re fighting a losing battle, and you’re already planning your feast on the way home. … Or maybe you’ve had everything perfect until mid week and then work just went crazy - you’re being pulled from pillar to post and you figure it’s impossible to deliver on your work demands AND follow your diet precisely so you forget about the diet - just for now - just until you get this deadline out the way. … Or maybe it’s the worst one of all - you can feel the cravings coming on. You can’t stop thinking about the things you’re missing out on. It’s like you have to fight the urge more and more, and the more you fight it the stronger the urges get - until you can’t resist any longer and you let yourself “just have a taste” of something. And “just a taste” becomes “just another… and just another…” until the day is pretty much ruined. So you figure if you’re going to binge you might as well make sure that this is the last time. You might as well make sure that you satisfy not just this urge but all future urges! And on… and on… and on… WHY?! THE PROBLEM IS THIS RIDICULOUS BELIEF THAT YOU NEED MORE CONTROL! That you need to get everything tighter, stricter, more precise. Frankly your CONTROL IS OUT OF CONTROL! So therefore you have no control! Your incessant need to have everything perfect - to control all the variables creates two things: 1) A feeling of being excessively controlled, restricted, and deprived 2) A fear of losing control. The more precise you believe things need to be in order to feel “on track”, the more fearful you become of losing that precision. Here is the truth. If you want a transformation in your body and the way you “do life” then you need to learn how to be flexible and adaptable and make smart decisions on the fly when things are out of your control or when you feel like a change. You need to learn how to DO LIFE! How to go out for a coffee with a friend and have a taste of their cake, or how to go to a work function when the only food available is cheese sandwiches, or how to once in a while let your hair down and enjoy a special occasion. But if you have the self awareness and the humility to accept that what you’ve been doing for the last how many years clearly isn’t working for you, then perhaps it’s time to let go of perfectionism and learn a better way…..