Today, I want to talk about how I quit the All or Nothing Approach back in December of 2011 and started focusing on daily behaviors that I could control and building and solidifying key nutritional habits instead.
The most important nutritional habits that I practiced to get the results shown in these pics below are the fundamental habits that we will be practicing in my upcoming Group Coaching Program called, The Small Change Project. This program closes on Sunday, 6/12/16 at MIDNIGHT, and I don’t know when I’ll re-open it again. Get More Details and Grab Your Spot HERE.
Back in 2011, I wasn’t happy with the way my body looked for the amount of work I felt I was putting in. I was doing extreme diets and meal plans and lots of cardio and weight training.
Dec. 2011
I was exercising for double the amount of time I do currently, so it’s surprising when I look back at these pics (2011) and think to myself…”Wow, what a waste of time and effort. I’m so glad I learned how to work smarter and not harder.”
I also didn’t have a healthy relationship with food at the time. There were a lot of “off-limit”, “unhealthy” & “bad” foods that I was depriving myself from. So when I got a chance to eat those foods, I used the “Oh What the Hell, I might as well enjoy these foods while I have the chance mindset.” Then I’d tell myself little white lies like, “I’ll tighten it back up tomorrow.” Yeah…we all know that really means, next week or next month, in the All or Nothing Approach. It’s normal to resist restriction…..
I was also obsessed with the number on the scale. It determined if I had been “good” or “bad” that week. But no matter how hard I tried and how ALL or Nothing I was, I couldn’t CONTROL that number on the scale. It was Exhausting!
Although I was eating a lot of healthy foods at the time, but when you’re depriving & restricting yourself on any level like I was plus exercising too much, you’ll compensate for it somewhere else….mine was almond butter 😉
Almond butter isn’t considered an “unhealthy food”, but I was going through a jar per week….Yeah…a jar of almond butter should last a single person 2 weeks or longer. This is why we say, “You can eat too much of a good thing, too!”
At the time, I also had no idea how to eat intuitively. I was just eating 5 meals per day every 2-3 hours. I didn’t take into account how I was feeling, if I was hungry or not hungry, or what foods satisfied me vs. what didn’t satisfy me…Talk about Mindless Eating!
But that all changed when my BEST friends and colleagues in the fitness field, Alicia Perez and Coach D. Soto, taught me about focusing on key nutritional habits and daily behaviors around eating that I could track on a daily basis.
My Accountability Partners in Crime
It completely changed my mindset, and my comfort and ease around food. When I just had to check the box that I did or didn’t do one thing per day, instead of worrying about changing 5 things and hoping the scale told me what I wanted it to tell me! How FREEing and Relaxing it was to find this new way of doing things.
What I found was that it wasn’t so much WHAT foods I was eating, but HOW I was eating the food in front of me that mattered. I tuned into HOW I was feeling while I was eating and afterwards. Tuning into these feelings is the only way for you to find out what foods are best for you!
May 2012
What I’ve Found REALLY Works:
Key Nutritional Habits Practiced Over and Over and Over. #habitcycling
Focusing on 1 Key Habit at a time until it’s solidified, then you start the next one. Some habits take longer than others. That’s why I created #habitcycling. You are constantly cycling healthy habits, but giving your main focus to only 1 at a time.
Consistency and getting rid of the “Oh..What the Heck” Effect. One slip up isn’t going to put a dent in our results. It’s after the slip up, and the oh…might as well eat everything in sight now…that puts a dent in our progress.
AWARENESS. Hunger levels, sensations, cravings, satisfied, &/or stuffed. All of these are trying to tell us something about the food and activities we’re engaging in, but we have to pay attention.
Self-Monitoring. We have to track behaviors, measure, and manage. “What Gets Measured…Gets Managed.”
Accountability. A Coach or A Group works best. It’s awesome knowing that other people are practicing the same things as you and that you have support to lean on when you need it.
Resilience & Patience. There will be good days and bad days. There’s also lot of daily grinding and putting the time in without any visible progress at times, in the health and fitness field.
It’s been 4 years, that I’ve been Habit Cycling (#habitcycling) KEY Nutritional Habits. I have it down to a system now, but every once in awhile, I look for accountability and support to practice the hard ones that I want to avoid doing, but know are good for me.
Think about it, everyone is looking for FAST Results, but these things take time to get under your belt. Habits aren’t EASY or SEXY to talk about or practice, and a lot of people in the fitness industry, would have you believe that you just need another diet or meal plan, but Habits are WHAT WORK for SUSTAINABLE RESULTS!
When I started focusing on daily behaviors and habits that I could control, I got better results in 5-6 months than I did with the Yo-Yo Diet Cycle in 5 – 10 years!
So, what are you going to choose? Stay in the All or Nothing Diet Cycle or give Habits a try?
If you’re ready to take your health and fitness to the next level, and really start to become AWARE of HOW you eat the food in front of you and listen to your body and what your CRAVINGS and SENSATIONS are trying to tell you, then join me for The Small Change Project!
Registration CLOSES, 6/12/16, at MIDNIGHT. Grab your spot HERE!
Thanks for stopping by,
Tommie