Do you struggle to stick to your diet?
Maybe the first few weeks wheeze past just fine, because you’re so ‘motivated’ to ‘smash it’. Then the days go by and that burger/pizza/ice cream that you swore you’d never tough again just seems to get tastier and tastier – at least in your mind.
Just one bite won’t hurt… then it turns into a cheat-meal, a cheat-day, or even a cheat-week….
Then you’re back at square one (probably not for the first time) and you wonder if you’ll every be able to stick to any nutrition plan at all.
First you have to understand why it happens, and it all comes down to 3 main points:
1. Set your goals according to your values
2. Homeostatic function of the mind
3. Self sabotage
1. Set your goals according to your values
For example, if you’re thinking about competing, ask yourself these questions:
- When did you decide that?
- How long has that been a goal?
- Why?
- What’s your biggest challenge and why has it taken you so long to decide that?
- What keeps getting in the way?
Don’t set goals that are doomed to fail from the get-go. Instead, set them according to your values,
If career is of highest importance, ask, how is training and eating well going to help you in your career and make more money? If they don’t link, you have some work to do. Unless you change your highest value, you’re going to have to create realistic expectations based on your values. If you don’t, you are just setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration.
So if you’re thinking about competing but struggle to answer the questions above, what if you changed your goal to a photo-shoot? Make it a little less stressful? Does that sound better?
Release yourself from your self-constructed jail of conflicting values.
2. Homeostatic Function of the Mind
Are you really off track? Are you really ‘blowing out’? Just a suggestion – maybe deep down, you’ve already achieved what you really want.
Maybe you’ve been 70 kilos for your entire life. and now you’re down to 65 kilos. That’s great! Go any lower and you’ll have to buy new pants, shirts, shorts… That’s a whole new wardrobe! You can’t be bothered!
So if you see 64kilos on the scales (which is almost every week) this is actually a sign from God telling you you need to eat a whole pizza.
It all comes down to self image. You can be happy with your weight loss, and that’s completely okay. Or you might want to get to 60 kilos, but think that that’s not realistic, so you’re happy just training – and there is nothing wrong with that either!
3. Self-Sabotage
This is the classic, scared of success person who doesn’t know how to deal with success. In short, they’re scared of what life would be like if they did achieve their goal. Mostly these guys are really soft-spoken individuals who are a pleasure to be around.
If you think this is you, turn to an NLP consultant, not a personal trainer or a new nutrition plan. These issues are almost always wayyyy out of scope of any trainer, and can get seriously deep, seriously fast.
Often people think that they need a different approach to nutrition: count your macros, don’t count macros, reverse diet, clean eat… When really, it’s the relationship you build with the foods you eat that really matters. You’re a human, not a machine. Things that worked for others might not work for you – not JUST because we’re all so different biochemically, but because we ARE different – in every aspect!
At the end of the day, most people (including competitors) have other things in their life that need time, money and energy – not just training. Although, lets face it, training and hard work makes everything in life that much sweeter.
Mark Ottobre
Owner and Director
Enterprise Fitness
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