The P-Word: the enemy of weight loss
Now if you’re a perfectionist – listen up – because THIS IS FOR YOU!
Having guided hundreds of women to become their happy shape and size, I can let you in on a secret.
‘Perfectionism’ works NOT at all as a weight management tool.
In our heavily photoshopped and diet-driven world, we’ve been tricked into believing that it’s possible to become our happy shape and size by “being perfect.”
But the problem with perfectionism is that it conveniently forgets something fundamental—that we’re human, life happens, and we live in the real world.
Trying to lose weight perfectly is overrated, and it’s exhausting, and it’s the quickest way to self-sabotage.
I know you’ve been there.
Perhaps you’ve decided to go sugar-free for the month, but somehow a chocolate biscuit finds it’s way into your mouth. Instead of enjoying the chocolatey treat, savouring it, you immediately shame yourself and beat yourself up…
“Oh crap, I’ve eaten the chocolate, there’s lots of sugar in there—that’s naughty—I might as well eat the whole box of biscuits and eat them out of the way because “I’ve really ruined it!”
Hello guilt, shame and making yourself wrong.
Sure you promise you’ll go sugar-free Monday (next month, at New Years)……… But in the interim we eat everything in the pantry……in imitation of a bear hibernating for winter.
So many of the women who come to see me have been doing this on high repetition.
So what I encourage you to do is put down the beating-up-stick called perfectionism and I give you permission to focus on…
Progress NOT perfection
We all stumble when we learn something new. When you focus on progress over perfection, you permit yourself to be human.
It allows you to stumble, to dust yourself off and keep on keeping on without the heaviness of guilt or shame or making yourself wrong.
Whenever we do that – the shame, the guilt, the making ourselves wrong – we break our own heart.
I get that progress, not perfection feels counter intuitive at first.
We’re so used telling ourselves to harden up as we shame ourselves every time we reach for the chocolate.
But if beating yourself up was going to work, it would’ve worked by now.
So give yourself the gift of progress, not perfection.
Every time you stumble treat yourself with kindness, remind yourself that you’re human and keep on keeping on step by step.
Because you are rewriting, you are re-wiring years and years of old conditioning and learned behaviour.
Here’s how you can apply #progressNOTperfection to your weight loss journey.
For example, if you’re halfway through your dinner, and you realise that you’re scoffing it down—just remember to remember to eat slowly. In that moment just remember to slow down.
Simply start eating slowly, even if it’s mid-chew…….just remember to remember.
No drama, no, “OMG, I fail at everything!!” “OMG this proves that I’m never going to shift this weight!!!!”
You’re just being human!
Allow yourself that gift and just keep on keeping on.
By focusing on progress not perfection, you recalibrate your mind.
You replace that All or Nothing judgmental thinking…that Black and White comparison-i-tis thinking we’ve learned from the diet industry (which keeps us stuck!)
Be compassionate, be kind, allow yourself to mess the journey up. Have a bit of fun!
And before you know it you’ll well on the way to becoming your happy shape and size, imperfectly, step by step by step.
