Here's a scenario that
might seem familiar to you: You're on a diet and doing fairly well. One day you
go to lunch with a friend, and while they are chowing down on a tasty burger
you're dutifully eating your spinach salad topped with grilled chicken and
olive oil. You're following your plan even better than expected. You've got the
fiber and antioxidants from the spinach, protein from the chicken, and even
some healthy monounsaturated the olive oil. You should be proud of the decision
you've made, the steps you're taking towards your goal. But you're not proud;
you're grumpy--because you want that burger.
Now, you're
in a state of extreme emotional dissonance: What you are doing is fundamentally
antithetical to what you want to be doing; and you can only exist in
this dissonant state for so long. It's a psychological fact. Something has to
give and usually it's you.
If you're
anything like me, you've been in that situation, and you can literally feel
your resolve crumble. You want to stay strong, but at the end of the meal, you
decide to split a dessert.
Oh, yeah.
We've all been there.
Now, eating
half of a restaurant brownie isn't going to help you drop the body fat you
want, but it won't completely sabotage your efforts, either. The problem
is, the brownie is usually just the start.
And this
is the problem. Having worked with clients for more than 10 years, most people
suffer from an extreme inability to fail on a small scale. When they
screw-up, that's it for them--they have screwed up permanently, and so they
keep going.
Conventional
wisdom tells us that if you find yourself in a hole, you should stop
digging--that's the logical thing to do. However, when it comes to nutrition,
we aren't logical or conventionally wise. When clients have a dietary faux pas,
their impulse, paradoxically, is to make it worse; after they eat the
brownie, they think, "Well, I've ruined today. I may as well just eat
whatever I want and then be good tomorrow."
That would
be bad enough by itself; however, for many people, they carry the failure over
to the next day, and the day after, and finally, "I'll be good
tomorrow" becomes "I'll start again on Monday."
The Monday Mindset
Historically,
Monday is the busiest day at gyms. (In my facility, attendance is 30% higher
than any other day of the week, and that is not unique.) A decade of looking at
clients' food logs makes it clear that Monday is also the day with the highest
level of dietary compliance.
Which is
ironic, considering this: In my view, Monday is the most dangerous day of the
week. Not Monday, but the idea of Monday--a fresh start, always
available, never more than a week away.
All of this
is part of what I call the Monday Mindset. When you're thinking about getting
started on an exercise or nutrition plan, the Mindset manifests itself with
items like these:
- "I'll go to the gym on Monday."
- "Starting Monday, I'm going to do cardio every day."
- "New diet on Monday! This is going to be my last 'bad' meal, so I'm going to enjoy it!"
Familiar,
right?
When you're
already on a plan of some kind, the Mindset excuses look these:
- I've missed two workouts--this was a really busy week. I'm talking the week off. I'll start again on Monday.
- Well, I had that brownie. The day weekend is shot to hell. I'll just start again on Monday.
- I'll have a few beers during the game. But starting Monday, I'm taking things more seriously. No more drinking.
In either
case, this type of self delusion self-talk is the number on thing
inhibiting your progress: It keeps you from progressing because it encourages a
limiting belief that you can't course-correct during the week. It encourages
you to give up close to the finish line because of the incorrect thought
that you can start over.
We've all
heard that the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and
expecting different results, and yet we all fall victim to the trap of Monday
over and over and over again.
So, how to
we fix it? There are two big steps to take.
1) Remove the refresh button from the equation.
What we all
need to realize is that there is nothing inherently special about
Monday. There are no magical properties about that day that make it any more or
less effective in terms of achieving results. The fact that the calendar says
it's the beginning of the week doesn't mean that you can lift more weight or
that you'll burn more fat on Monday than on Tuesday or any other day.
What you
need to do is just take five to ten minutes and really think about that. Monday
is just a day. Just because it's in the beginning of the workweek doesn't mean
it has to be the beginning of everything else. Once you realize this, you will
immediately take ownership of the fact that you can start--or re-start--your
program on any day; and that makes it much easier to get back on the
wagon.
To help my
clients with this, I just rearrange programming to avoid the issue. Monday is
no longer the starting point. Instead, each new program begins on Thursday. The
motivation of the new workout carries them through the weekend--where screw-ups
are most likely to happen--with little trouble, and they are able to focus and
execute.
In fact, for
some clients, Monday is an "off" day and there is no gym time at all.
I have found that since Monday is generally a busy work day, removing the idea
that you "have to" go to the gym after your longest and hardest work
day actually increases compliance for the rest of the week.
2) Learn to fail small.
If you find
that the thing holding your success back is "cheating" on your diet,
mastering small failures is probably the number one thing you can do to
minimize the impact of stepping outside your diet.
Mastering
small failures means that you become comfortable with the fact that sometimes
you will slip up. This happens to everyone. None of us are perfect, especially
when comes to dietary habits, and eating half a brownie isn't some cardinal sin
that immediately negates the impact of your previous successes, or devalues or
invalidates your future ones.
If you can
wrap your head around these things, then you will find it exponentially easier
to hit the breaks--instead of the gas--when you eat something you're not
supposed to.
YOUR HEALTH IS WEALTH
Consider the
following situation: Say you took a trip to Vegas and immediately lost $500. If
you're like most people, your response wouldn't be to spend the rest of your
cash. Instead, you would dial back your spending and get back on track. Your
diet is no different. I suggest keeping a "play money" account of
calories each week. You can easily do this by setting a calorie goal on My
Plate. If you do slip up, think of it as "spending" these calories on
something frivolous--just don't go over your budget, and you'll be fine. Once
you have spent your allotment, do everything in your power to STOP spending.
Begin your budget with 300 to 400 calories (per week, not per day), and
try to work your way down.
Eventually,
you'll start to develop both discipline, and a completely different attitude
towards food and cheating. Of course, this can take some time, and mastering
small failures and discarding the Monday Mindset is pitting you against two
habits that are arguably the most difficult to discard. But your first step is awareness,
and in some way, just reading this article will be of tremendous value and help
you make changes that will help your efforts.
Whether it's
removing the temptation of an ever-present fresh start or learning to master
the all-in attitude such temptation fosters, your best bet towards fixing the
problem is cutting yourself some slack. Realize that messing up on one meal out
of three isn't the end of the world--nor is messing up one day out of seven.
Developing a
real understanding and mastery of these concepts is the key to keeping these
failures in check, and giving yourself the best chance for success. Once that
occurs, you should feel confident that the rest will fall into place.
