Do either of these scenarios sound familiar to you?
You’ve started your health goal and you are full of motivation! “Yes! This is gonna be my year.”
You clear your fridge out of all the ‘naughty’ food and drink, whizz over to the supermarket and stock your fridge with lots of ‘healthy’ food. All very admirable.
However, a few days later you go to the fridge for a snack and there’s nothing you fancy, you’re sick of snacking on just fruit so you decide its too hard and revert to your old eating/drinking habits. You decide you just can’t diet…it’s too hard. It’s boring. It doesn’t work.
Scenario 2…you’ve had a long hard day at work, the kids are nagging that they’re hungry, you have a banging headache and can’t face the thought of cooking, so you order a Chinese takeaway. You then feel guilty and decide to sack off the new diet as you’ve ‘ruined it’ and you’ll start again next Monday.
Our One You Lincolnshire Health Coach, Lisa, has this advice;
"Consistency is aided by being kind to yourself from the beginning, think about how you speak to yourself when you “fall off the wagon”, would you speak to anyone else in this way? At the beginning remember to start small, what’s the one thing you can give up/change rather than a complete overall? If you start simple your confidence will build and once you have nailed your first target you will see the benefits and be able to plan your next target for change.
There is nothing wrong with having a big end goal, but realising that with planning, simple and realistic goals, your approach is more likely to be less bumpy and more empowering and that will help with being consistent.
It's really important to understand that one person’s idea of perfection is different to another’s so ultimately un-achievable."
Now, what you’ve got to understand about making healthy changes is that consistency is much better than perfection. Eating things you like but watching portion control is going to be much more enjoyable and sustainable than eating what is labelled ‘healthy’. What’s more, eating something you actually enjoy doesn’t mean you have ruined anything!
Put it this way, if you had £24,000 in your bank account and someone stole £10, you wouldn’t then throw the rest away would you?
It’s the same with diet/exercise/ quitting smoking. We all have 24 hours in a day. If you have a 10-minute treat, overindulge, or cigarette, you don’t need to throw the rest of the week away. Accept it, keep consistent, and carry on. After all, there will always be tough days, there will always be life events.
This is one of the things we go more into depth with here at One You Lincolnshire. We look at simple, sustainable changes and encourage a positive mind-set with our health coaching.
You don’t need to live a life of restriction; you just need to be consistent with your efforts.
