Don’t let a slip-up make you give up.
It’s okay to make a mistake.
There’s a word to describe people who make mistakes. That word is everybody.
There’s a word to describe people who make mistakes. That word is everybody.
Nobody’s perfect.
Especially when it comes to losing or maintaining weight, and being healthy overall.
The important thing is how you respond to mistakes.
Will you learn from it, and do your best going forward?
Or will you throw up your hands, say, “Oh well. Now that I’ve blown it, I might as well quit entirely.” And then give up?
Why slip-ups make you want to give up
I’ve talked many times about the problems with most diets.
The biggest problem is that they’re too hard.
They make you miserable, and you just aren’t going to stick to a habit that makes you miserable for the rest of your life.
Instead, you’ll look for any excuse to stop doing the thing that makes you miserable.
And slipping up gives you that excuse to stop.
Even though the excuse doesn’t make any sense.
Whatever factors led to you deciding to diet aren’t going to be any different just because you ate an entire bucket of ice cream.
But deep down, you really don’t want to be dieting. Because the diet strategy you’re pursuing isn’t a sustainable one. (In fact, that’s exactly why it isn’t sustainable.)
So after slipping up, you can just throw some blame at your past self, and then you don’t have to put yourself through the unpleasantness.
Deep down, you may even want to have a bad day, just so you can finally stop depriving yourself.
The problem with self-loathing
Another major problem with traditional diets is that they are often based on self-loathing.
They tell you that you can only be a decent human being capable of living a complete and worthwhile life once you’re skinny.
Which implies that while you’re not skinny, you’re some sort of sub-human.
On top of this, people with weight struggles often have self-esteem issues tied to their weight, even before they embark on the flawed diet plan.
Once someone has a baseline sense of self-loathing, a diet fail can make that sense consume them.
They’ll feel like they don’t deserve to be healthy. Or that they’ll never be capable of losing weight, so why bother. And it certainly doesn’t help if they’ve been using a diet that’s way too hard to maintain for the long-term.
Do not think that way!
First of all, you should adjust your mindset. Separate your sense of self-worth from your weight. See your weight loss journey as a positive and joyous experience instead of a negative and painful one.
(I’ll be writing a Weight Loss Wednesday on mindset soon which discusses this more.)
Remember that you do deserve to be healthy. You are capable of doing so with the right strategies. And one bad day is just one bad day.
You can slip up even when pursuing the right strategies
Even when you’re losing weight the right way, you’ll still have bad days.
As a reminder, the right way to lose weight is to use strategies to build the right habits. The most important habit is to think before you eat and make a rational decision if it’s a good idea.
For more information on the right way to lose weight, see the Health and Weight Loss topic page, or buy your copy of The Weight Loss Habit for a how-to guide on easily losing weight without relying on willpower or deprivation, while still eating the foods you love.
Losing weight based on the right strategies and habits is much easier and more effective than traditional diets. But it would be unrealistic to expect you’ll stick to them every meal.
No matter how easy it is, you’ll make mistakes.
Pobody’s Nerfect.
Maybe you’ll be depressed. Or hormonal. Or drunk. Or at a party. Or Thanksgiving. And you’ll gobble down junk food like great white let loose on a Vegas buffet.
And that’s okay.
There’s two ways you can react to that:
- Hate yourself, and then continue to eat badly for the rest of your life.
- Move past it, forget about it, and then do your best to be healthy going forward.
It’s pretty clear which is the better choice.
Conclusion: Don’t let a slip up make you give up, in weight loss or in life
This idea doesn’t just apply to weight.
Anytime you’re trying to make a positive change your life, you will inevitably suffer setbacks.
You’ll do things wrong.
You’ll have failures of willpower.
You’ll blow it, where the screw-up is entirely your fault.
It happens to me. It happens to everybody. And since you are part of everybody, it will happen to you.
The important thing is to pick yourself up, move past it, and do your best going forward.
Did you find this article helpful? You might enjoy my book The Weight Loss Habit: The No BS, No Gimmick, (Sort Of) Easy Way to Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever. Available now on Amazon.
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