Archives November 2020

The P-Word: the enemy of easy weight loss

 

Are you a perfectionist?

Having helped 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-loss tool.

(Hands up if you’ve already found this to be true!!!)

The big myth…

In our heavily photoshopped and diet-driven world, we’ve been tricked into believing that if we are just “a bit more perfect”, we’ll lose weight — and live happily ever after.

It’s a complete and utter myth.

The problem with perfectionism is that it conveniently forgets something fundamental:  that we’re human, and we live in the real world (not the Instagram world!)

Here’s how destructive perfectionist thinking can be:

For example, you decide to sugar-free. But uh-oh it’s also your kid’s birthday, so you eat a slice of his cake.

And instead of savouring the chocolatey treat and celebrating your boy’s birthday –  you immediately berate yourself.

“Oh crap, I’ve eaten the cake — what a disaster—I might as well eat the party food out of the way, and I’ll go sugar-free on Monday.”

That’s the lie of perfectionism. It makes us quit on ourselves. Hello, guilt and shame.

Aspiring for perfection leads to weight gain

Many of the women I work with have been doing this on high repetition for years.

The more perfect they try to be, the more weight they gain.

And it’s not your fault – being perfect is a myth that the diet industry spends billions of dollars tricking us into believing.

Ditch perfection for this.

Here’s what I want you to do instead…

First of all – stop with the extreme soul-destroying diets!!!!!

Second – focus on progress over perfection

I get that progress over perfection feels counterintuitive at first.

But it allows you to be human.

It allows you to stumble, to dust yourself off and keep on keeping on without the heaviness of guilt r shame.

For example, just because you had a slice of cake doesn’t mean you have to eat the rest of your kid’s party food.

It reduces the drama, and the “OMG, I fail at everything!!”

You’re human!

By focusing on progress over perfection, you recalibrate your mind.

You replace that All or Nothing thinking…that we’ve learned from the diet industry (which keeps us stuck!)

And before you know it, you’ll well on the way to becoming your happy shape and size, imperfectly, step by step by step.

 

How to deal with the Halloween ‘blow out’

 

If you feel like you “blew it” with Halloween treats, this video is for you.

I’ll admit I got pretty excited about the chocolate treats while at a party on Saturday.

And boy oh boy did I pay for it on Sunday! I woke up with a massive sugar hangover. Haha.

Was this you too?

Spiral from Halloween to the New Year….

I’m going to be honest. The old perfectionist me would’ve felt super guilty about eating the chocolate which would’ve spiralled into a guilt-ridden junk-food binge that would’ve lasted until January’s NY’s resolutions.

My perfectionist voice would’ve said: “Well you already ‘blew it’ so you might as well keep blowing it for the rest of the week, end of the month, until the new year.

You too?!!

Guilt begets guilt….

Can you see how insidious that is?

We feel guilty from eating Halloween chocolate, which leads to EVEN MORE guilt eating.

It’s a very slippery and depressing slope.

Here’s what to do instead…

Recognise your ‘perfectionist thinking’.

Stop believing the lie that your mind is trolling you with.

The fib that: “eating Halloween chocolate is the end of the world”.

So, you had some chocolate. (Maybe quite a lot of chocolate)

…..big whoop!

You haven’t blown anything. (That’s the old diet mentality kicking in).

No food is off-limits

The way I live is that no foods are off-limits.

Enjoy the delicious chocolate, and enjoy the Halloween fun – that’s a beautiful part of life.

And now that Halloween is over for another year, I encourage you to get back to eating the foods that nourish your body.

Simples.

Stop being so dramatic!!!

It’s not the chocolate at Halloween that prevents weight loss.

It’s the choices you make the next day and the next and the next that makes the difference.

So please, call yourself out on your perfectionist thinking and get back to nourishing your body again today.

I hope you found that helpful and I look forward to seeing you next week with another making peace with food tip.

Love etc, Avril x

PS: Helping women take back their power from that perfectionist voice is one of my superpowers. If you’d like help eliminating that trolling voice in your head so you can feel more in control around food, drop me an email.