How to stop the All-or-Nothing Diet Mentality
One of my friends once told me they’d been on a diet for the last ten years.
And they hadn’t lost any weight. In fact they now weighed even more than they did ten years ago.
Basically, they’d just spent ten years agonising over what to eat, feeling guilty when they ate ice cream, judging themselves by the number on the scale, suffering through bouts of overeating and then starving themselves…
And it’s actually a super common problem, that a lot of us deal with.
We haven’t been dieting for ten years though.
We’ve been in the all-or-nothing dieting mindset for ten years.
What is the all-or-nothing diet mindset?
Most diets are super restrictive.
- They make you cut out whole food groups (e.g. keto diet cuts out carbs)
- They make you drastically reduce your food intake
- They make you “give up” all your favourite foods
- They make you think of certain foods as “bad” foods or “cheat” foods
When you start a diet, you know you won’t be allowed to eat a wide variety of the foods and drinks you normally do.
How many times have you decided to start a diet on Monday, so spend the weekend desperately eating all those foods you’re about to give up? The pizza, the alcohol, the ice cream, the chocolate, the fried chicken…
All the foods that are “not allowed” on your new diet.
And how many times during a diet, have you caved in to your cravings and then thought “screw it, I’ve fallen off the wagon, I might as well have all the bad foods now…”
This is the all-or-nothing diet mentality.
The idea that when it comes to nutrition, you’re either 100% in or 100% out.
The idea that you’re being “good” when you’re eating the salads and green smoothies and you’re being “bad” when you’re eating the chocolate and the takeaways.
Why is this diet mentality bad?
Most people who are familiar with feeling like this, know how mentally draining it is to feel like you’re constantly on a diet.
- Constantly restricting your food intake
- Constantly depriving yourself of your favourite foods
- Constantly feeling guilty for the food you eat
As you can see, it’s not a healthy way to live.
How to stop the all-or-nothing diet mentality
It is a super big step going from the all-or-nothing diet mentality to a more long-term, healthy approach to your nutrtion.
But it is possible!
1. Realise that you’re in this for the long-term
If you want being fit and healthy to be part of your lifestyle, you have to realise that you cant deprive yourself forever. Sometimes you’ll overeat. Sometimes you’ll crave chocolate. Sometimes you’ll feel like a couple of glasses of wine.
This doesn’t mean you’ve wrecked all your progress towards your goals.
If you saw a tiny scratch on your car, would you go find a sledgehammer and smash the car to bits? Its the same thing when you overeat at one meal, and decide you’ve completely wrecked your diet.
The most important meal of your life is not that last “cheat meal” you ate, it’s the next meal. As long as you pick yourself up, get back on track, one meal – or even one day! – of overeating is not going to make a difference.
In the LoveFit eight-week transformation, you track your daily calories, but instead of focusing on one day at time, you’ll be able to see your daily average across the week.
This helps you think long-term, and see that even if you over-shoot on your calories one day, you’re still making progress towards your goals.
2. Dieting is like interval training
Social media sucks for making it seem normal – and easy – to be walking around 365 days a year with a six pack.
It’s not normal.
Most fitness models, influencers, and social media celebrities will spend about 12 weeks a year drastically dieting and training to get that lean, toned physique complete with full six-pack. They’ll have a couple of photo shoots and shoot lots of content that they’ll be able to share online all year long. But they’ll return to a more relaxed lifestyle for the rest of the year.
But all we see, is the 8% body fat and six-pack year-round. And we think that’s normal, and achievable and healthy.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight for aesthetic reasons, and wanting a six-pack. It’s still an amazing goal and shows hard-work and dedication when you reach it.
But you have to come to terms with the fact it’s not a 24/7/365 goal.
To have a healthy – and happy! – lifestyle, you have to approach it more like interval training.
You need intervals of laser-like focus on your goals. Counting calories, training for muscle mass and definition.
And then intervals of relaxation, when you stick to healthy habits, but chill out a bit.
The LoveFit eight-week transformation is the perfect example of an interval of laser-focus on your goals. But it’s also designed to be easy to stick to, personalised for each participant, and helps solidfy good nutrition habits that you can continue to use during the maintenance periods.
3. Ideal/Not Ideal Mindset
During those intervals of relaxation, you still want to make sure you’re living a healthy lifestyle, and not falling into that 100% in or 100% out mindset.
A really simple way to do this is to think of all your foods as either:
- Ideal to help you towards your goals
- Not ideal to help you towards your goals
And try to make sure most of your meals are ideal.
I like to imagine two tables. After every meal I mentally place it on the ideal table or the not-ideal table. The idea is to make sure the ideal table is always filled more than the not-ideal table.
All my meals that are full of lean protein, fruits, vegetables, and minimally-processed carbs, are mentally placed on my ideal table.
All my meals that are less than ideal – processed foods, calorie dense foods and foods with little nutritional value – are placed on the not-ideal table.
This is a stress-free way of making sure my nutrition is still pretty good. If I have takeaways and ice cream one night, I just put it on the not-ideal table, and focus on making sure the next days meals are all full of nutritionally good foods that can be placed on my ideal table.
If I know I’m going out on Saturday night, and it’s going to be less-than-ideal for my goals, I can make sure for the few days leading up to the weekend, I’m filling up that ideal table and leaving plenty of space on the not-ideal table.
This is a great tool as it helps you see your nutrition and diet over the long term and stops you obsessing over one meal.
If you’re sick of feeling like you’re constantly dieting, if you’re sick of constantly feeling guilty about your food choices, and you want more peace of mind about your nutrition, sign up for the FREE foundations course in nutrition!
