Why traditional diets don’t work, setting process driven goals and how you can leverage your beliefs and personal values for lasting success.
The eventual moment of frustration, despair and exhaustion lurks in the shadows, hunting its victims. It waits for the perfect time to strike and… POW! Those crackers, cheese puffs and bottles of wine are gone. The moment never asked you if you were following the Keto diet, calorie counting or fasting. This beast finds you when you’re at your weakest and attacks without discrimination.
When you diet, you know this day is coming. You look forward to the moment when your 12-week challenge is up or plan that one night when you will make exceptions to your painfully strict diet regime.
The very word ‘diet’ implies a temporary fix. So many people choose this crude tool because it addresses short-term fat-loss needs. A phase of determined dieting works if you need a short-term result like being in shape for a photoshoot, event or fitness competition. But like high-school puppy love, the results never last.
If you’re like the majority of people, you don’t need another diet or even a better diet to get in shape. Instead, you need to learn and develop daily practices. Those practices become habits, those habits form patterns, and predictable patterns create long-term sustainable results. Practices, habits and patterns function seamlessly when held in place by an overarching philosophy for life. Then, if you do want to diet for an event, photoshoot or competition, doing so will help you refine your daily nutritional practices.
The impact of following a ‘diet’ is not to be understated. Dieting impacts your physical appearance, your cognitive function and penetrates your day-to-day life, colouring your schedule with either lack-lustre energy or constant thoughts of Friday night pizzas. Any diet or dietary lifestyle choice ultimately affects how you live, positively or negatively.
The more severe the diet, the more constraints you place on yourself. The more inconsistent your diet is with your internal beliefs, the more conscious you become of your diet and the harder it is to follow.
Willpower is often thought of as an endless resource you can continuously tap into. It’s not. We all have a finite number of daily willpower points. If you use yours up just to follow your diet, the rest of your life is placed on hold and suffers. Think of willpower like your phone battery. You can very easily use up your phone’s battery watching nonsensical videos. If you’re not careful, your phone can be out of juice when it comes time to send an important message or make a call.
I’ve known many fitness models and physique competitors willing to expend all their energy and concentration to look a certain way. Even they get tired and go off the rails, consuming all the foods they used willpower to avoid. They end up as fatty-puffy versions of their former selves, never being able to return to the world of physique competitions or dare to be in front of a camera without layers of clothing hiding their personal shame. It’s heart-breaking but can be avoided with education and some tweaks to nutrition and health.
The fields of health, fitness and nutrition are full of sound bites from the media and know-nothing influencers who present short-term fixes to what will always be a long-term problem. No amount of quick fixes will ever be adequate to solve a problem that will be with you until the end of your days; your health and fitness.
Here at Enterprise we help thousands of people transforming their lives. Are you ready to jump start your fitness journey?
