I’ve worked with over 100 people in my coaching career, and every single person faced at least one of three fitness traps.
In today’s blog, I am going to cover all of these traps and why they are holding you back from the body you deserve.
No longer will you struggle with losing fat, eating better, and getting in great shape.
No more guilt.
No more “all or nothing” mentality.
No more using exercise as punishment.
When you can set yourself free of these three traps, your entire fitness journey (and life) will run smoother and more enjoyable.
I used to think that if I wasn’t following a specific diet or strict nutrition, I was gaining weight.⠀This leads to anxiety all around my food choices, and if I wasn’t restricting, then I wasn’t making progress.⠀
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Ever feel like this?⠀
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I’ve learned that this is actually a ‘perfectionist’ mindset and an all or nothing mentality. Yes, it got results when I was ‘perfect’, but the second I made a choice that was not ‘perfect’, it backfired, I felt guilty and awful and it led to a downward spiral of self-sabotaging choices.⠀
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Falling off track and not being ‘perfect’ made me feel like a failure.⠀I realized I needed to find a balanced lifestyle and flexible structure, so I could break free from this awful cycle.⠀
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Is this something I am completely free of…. No! It’s definitely a process.⠀
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But what I have learned, and what I want you to know, is that you don’t need to be perfect in order to have results, in order to lose weight, and in order to have the body you desire. The flexibility is what will actually create long term, lasting success.⠀
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The peak of the all or nothing trap leads to a whole lot of this next trap.
This one goes hand in hand with the “all or nothing” mindset described above.
I’ll state this nice and clearly for you:
You never have to feel guilty for a food choice or missing a workout. You are not a criminal and you are not harming people. There is no guilt.
“Why do I get that guilty feeling after eating bad foods?”
The problem lies in that sentence itself. There are no good or bad foods. There are foods that will make your journey easier, and there will be foods that can make fat loss harder. One is not morally better than the other. Some days, that cookie is a perfect choice for what you want and need. Some days, you’re better off having a protein shake.
Fitness is never black and white, and unfortunately, we have been programmed to believe that in order to see results we need to label foods and cut out the “bad” ones.
By now you’ve seen how these are intertwined. Here’s the scenario before we jump into this one:
You’ve decided to start a diet because you want to lose 20lbs. First step, you’re not eating bread, fruit, pasta, cereal, oatmeal, and you can forget about wine and your favourite snacks. You also decide that you want this to happen ASAP so you add cardio to every workout AND on your off days. You’re all in. That is until you have a food that’s not allowed…
Now you feel guilty and decide “F IT” and eat all the foods for a few days until you feel uncomfortable with yourself.
With me so far?
Now we have reached the third fitness trap: punishment.
You feel terrible for all the extra food you’ve eaten so you decide you have to do extra cardio and extra workouts to burn off everything you ate. You’re exhausted, drained of energy, still craving your favourite foods because you’re back to restricting, and starting the cycle all over again.
This will not work for you, nor should it.
Exercise should be a celebration of what the body can do, not a punishment for the foods we are eating. The same way fitness should enhance your life, not make it more difficult.
I know we are heading into the highest calorie time of year and it may be difficult to lose fat over the next few weeks. Understanding these fitness traps and avoiding them will help your long term results and frame of mind long past the rest of 2020.
Don’t approach the coming holiday season with an all or nothing approach, don’t guilt yourself for eating too much here and there, and definitely don’t punish yourself for not being able to stick to your plan. Life happens, be kind to yourself, and make the entire journey more manageable.