Can’t lose weight? Maybe it is because you are a perfectionist
It is common to think that the better you can perform a job the more success you will have. This approach makes sense in the workplace but the problem for people trying to lose weight is when they apply it to their weight loss plan. The main reason this doesn’t work is because, for the vast majority of people, eating perfectly is a short term fix and ensuring you can lose weight and keep it off requires a longer term strategy.
We are so familiar with the idea that you can lose a stone in a month or 10lbs in 10 days. But plans that require you to eat set meals, significantly reduce calories or use shakes or bars as meal substitutes are not teaching you to eat in a way that is sustainable for the rest of your life. Losing weight is only half the battle, the other half is ensuring you keep that weight off forever and this is what your eating plan should be teaching you. Without this you will find yourself in the constant boom and bust cycle of restriction and then overeating. Every time you go through this cycle it becomes harder to lose weight and the amount you need to lose increases. This is your body’s way of protecting itself by preventing you from repeating the cycle again and again.
This is why you need to forget about making your eating perfect and instead concentrate on developing a network of eating habits that enable you to eat well the majority of the time. When you are thinking about these habits you should consider what you will be able to do on your worst day. When you are feeling stressed, tired or overworked and your motivation is low. You can always do more on the days when you have more motivation, but your baseline habits should be good enough and can be less than perfect.
I like to call this “living in the grey” which can be a hard thing to do if you are naturally a black and white thinker, an all or nothing type of person. Either you will do something brilliantly or not at all. Instead try and think what you can do because something, even small, is always better than nothing. In practice this means if lunch is not going to be a healthy option then you may still be able to go for a walk later, ensure you drink plenty of water or plan a healthy dinner.
If you want to lose weight and are now thinking that your desire for perfection could be holding you back, here are five ways you can start to change your thinking:
1. Realise that progress can happen without perfection. I love it when food diaries come through to me, the client has not eaten perfectly but they are still on track and losing weight. Nothing is better than this for proving that good enough is enough when it comes to sustainable weight loss.
2. Factor in a weekly treat. The more you deprive yourself of something the more you will create desire for it. Instead, make a weekly treat part of your weight loss plan. When you still lose weight even with a weekly treat you will start to believe that you are doing enough to create the results you want.
3. Remember that it is always worth doing something rather than nothing at all. If you have missed the gym, a 15 minute walk will do. Find you are talked into ordering pudding? See if someone will share, consider leaving some behind or change your plans for your next meal to a lighter option.
4. Be responsible with treats. It is helpful to factor in a treat each week and this will provide more incentive to stick to your plan. But consider how much you need to eat of something just because it is a treat, do you really need all six in the packet? There will be another treat at another time, change your thinking that once you have eaten them all you can go back to eating perfectly again.
5. Truly believe that you are not failing if you are not eating perfectly. Become comfortable with the grey area between being on a diet and eating perfectly and being off a diet and eating without thought or reason.
Hopefully including these five thoughts in your approach will begin to change your perfectionist thinking and enable you to lose weight sustainably. If you need help doing this then please get in contact with me, I would love to help you to reach your weight loss goals by Thinking Thinner.
