Starting....Again....
So you are telling yourself, yet again. I’ll “start” my diet/exercise program on Monday……How many times you’ve told yourself that and here you are again. You feel disappointed in yourself, you wonder if you should even bother trying, you ponder if there is even hope for you…..
Like I’ve stressed in previous Blogs and my bio – mindset is important. So let’s stop those thoughts right now and refocus/rethink.
So you had a few steps back….a month/or twelve of over indulging…..an injury that sidelined you and emotional eating steam rolled you in addition……a wonderful vacation in which you returned 10#s heavier…..and you are vowing again to start fresh tomorrow. (I’m assuming you’ve already read “determining if you are ready to adopt a behavior change” – and you are)
You can view your “setback” as a tool to assist you with learning new techniques or what does/does not work for you……what do I mean…. Let’s take the above scenarios for instance:
a month/or twelve of over indulging…..what could you learn from this? Let’s say you were really into socializing this past month – many parties/lots of drinking; hence the weight gain.
Maybe you need to re-prioritize - socialize a little less and take care of your health a little more?
Maybe you can eat healthier in the day if you know you are going to eat in excess in the night?
Maybe you can drink light beer instead of regular?
Maybe the side dish you bring can be a little less calories so you can fill most of your plate with this instead of all the other foods?
an injury that sidelined you and emotional eating steam rolled you in addition……You were doing great on your workout program – then you got injured and won’t be able to work out for who knows how long – you are bummed and pig out to help with your emotions.
Since this is common - Let me first say that you can still make progress and/or maintain just be ensuring your diet is in check. Don’t give it all up due to a little set back.
Maybe you were over exercising and that’s how you got injured- reassess your workout routine.
Maybe instead of emotional eating – you think of other ways you can stay on track? Say you hurt your foot running – you can still do pushups, sit-ups, upper body work – possibly swim.
a wonderful vacation in which you returned 10#s heavier….you know that you ate out a lot, but didn’t realize it was this much.
Maybe next month you can commit to hitting the hotel gym x amount of times.
Maybe knowing that you eat out every meal, you can make sure one or two of those meals better choices.
Maybe stop at a supermarket and buy healthy snacks and/or breakfast items to with your food choices.
Now when you are in the same scenario – you can separate the new you from the old you. You know what didn’t work last time – so this time try something differently. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing - a small change in the positive direction will still have you moving in the right track versus backwards.