There are many benefits to exercising and eating more healthily for both mind and body, but if done for the wrong reasons we can easily head off in a bad direction and end up doing more harm than good. This doesn’t mean we should avoid them altogether or that we’re doomed from the beginning, we just need to adjust course or change how we’re thinking to get back on a better path - whatever that may be for our individual goals. Life is tough enough without adding unnecessary suffering into our lives.
This isn’t designed to bash or discourage anyone from starting a fitness or diet plan, or condemn anyone who has already started. We’re just taking a look at some of the common mindsets that often set us off on a negative trajectory, and how we can identify them or choose more positive alternatives
1. Punishment or Guilt
Many people will use exercise or a strict diet as punishment for being “lazy” or “unhealthy”, but often this leads to more problems than more discipline. While it may reduce the chances of us reaching for unhealthy food in the short term - dreading the burpees or run that it will cost us - it also contributes to an (ironically) unhealthy relationship with food and exercise.
Humans, like most organisms, instinctively avoid pain and seek pleasure. So if all we associate exercise with is pain (physical discomfort or mental anguish), we’re more likely to try and avoid it - consciously or unconsciously (finding and focusing on excuses). The same goes for healthy eating, if we think of it as a punishment or something that causes us distress, we’ll be finding ways to avoid it or minimise time spent with it. This drastically lowers the chances of us sticking to any healthy changes or plans, putting us back to square one (maybe further back) sooner or later. Worse, if we’re in the habit of giving ourselves regular negative self talk (“I am lazy, I am unhealthy”), this can reinforce or provide evidence for that pattern of thinking, making it harder to break and allowing it to influence how we see ourselves or how we make decisions (“why bother, I’m too lazy to try that”, “I can’t do that, I’m not good enough”, etc). What we need here is a different perspective from the get-go.
Instead of looking at exercise as punishment or a way to burn “bad” calories, we are better off seeing it as an expression of what our body is capable of, or how we can challenge it to do more. If we can find something physical that we enjoy doing (to some degree) - like hill walking, dancing, hoisting iron - we can start to look at it as something we get to do (treat), not something we are forced to do (punishment). Even if it takes some conscious effort to think in more positive terms, practice will make it easier and stick more. From there we can find different ways to push ourselves (new skill, location, level or adventure) and we’re able to get more enjoyment out of our chosen physical activity and make progress at the same time.
With regards to diet, food is just food. A piece of chocolate cannot be good or evil - the quantity we consume may cause us problems or inhibit or progress, but too much of anything will start to cause problems. What matters here is the quantity and the context - if junk food makes up most of our diet it’s gonna be an issue sooner or later, but if it’s a part of an improved or otherwise balanced diet, it’s just a treat. No biggie. What can be helpful here is thinking in terms of a spectrum or progression instead of strictly good and bad. So instead of aiming for ultra healthy foods 24/7, just make slightly healthier choices or appreciate the small improvements we make here and there. Aiming for progress over perfection.
And if we mess up, it’s not the end of the world! We all fall off the horse from time to time. A few extra calories can be burned off with a brisk hill walk, dance or swim, and missing a few workouts won’t destroy our progress - just get back on it when we can and keep moving forward.
Alternatives:
Instead of starting a new fitness or diet plan as a punishment, start it because we want to see what our body can do, how we can improve or have an adventure - a way to try new things or achieve something we haven’t done before
Positive vibes. Focus on the positive aspects of what you’re doing, or reframe negative thoughts - so less “I’m lazy, I’m struggling” or “this is scary, I should run away”, more “I’m challenging myself” or “this is scary, so I’m overcoming my fears”
Avoid thinking in absolutes (good or bad). Think instead in terms of better or worse choices along a spectrum - so a 20 min walk may not be as challenging as a 20 min run, but it’s better than a 10 min walk or nothing at all. Four takeaways in a week is better than five or six. Progress is progress, big or small.
Don’t be so hard on yourself. We all fall off the wagon and mess up from time to time. Just get back up and find a way forward from where you are.
2. We Want or ”Need” Immediate Results
Changing our body takes time and effort, and while there are certainly efficient and inefficient ways to go about it - and plenty of ways to refine and improve what we’re doing once we’ve started - this is still something that can take months to achieve. This may be a hard pill to swallow in a world where everything is getting faster and more convenient, but that’s the reality of it. The “quick fixes” may give us some short term progress, but long term they are going to screw us over.
With “starvation” or ultra low calorie diets (often less than 600 calories per day for weeks), we may initially lose weight quickly but it will come back to haunt when we return to our normal eating habits. Scared by the sudden “famine”, our body will create more fat cells to store energy when we’re back to our regular eating routine, and stock up on more energy just in case we encounter another “famine” (our body has no idea that it’s planned or that we can just pop to the shops to grab some food if needed). So once the diet is over, if we aren’t strict with our calorie or macro counting, there is a good chance we’ll consume more than we burn in a day - especially as a reward or treat for completing a rough diet - and this will get funnelled into the new fat cells. Gaining weight quickly (often more than we lost in the ultra low diet), many will return to the harsh ultra low calorie diet that worked before, and so the cycle continues, yo-yoing between diet and weight gain. Quickly come, quickly go.
With exercise, the recovery side is often neglected - even by experienced athletes - so while pushing ourselves is good and will force the body to adapt, if we don’t recover enough between sessions we’ll soon run into trouble. Similar to starvation diets, we may see quick results with a sudden jump in exercise frequency/intensity, but if our body can’t keep up in repairing the damage done in training it’s only a matter of time before we get injured or burn out. If it’s a serious injury, we could be forced to sit out to recover for weeks/months, slowly losing all the hard earned progress. If we can avoid injury but are totally fried from training, this will carry over to other aspects of our lives, and may stall progress in other areas that are important to us. Sure, a new squat PB feels amazing, but if we’re regularly left tired and unable to function when our friend/family needs us or we have an important event at work, is it worth it?
In both arenas, diet and exercise, we’re better off taking a slower approach - slowly adding things in or stepping up the intensity over time, instead of immediately diving in at the deep end. Accepting that it may take a while, but as long as we’re doing something and making progress (great or small) we’re headed in the right direction. This makes the process far more sustainable and easy to adhere to, which is what we need for long term changes. Fortunately, as there is no one perfect way to diet or exercise, we can approach it however we want, and take the time to experiment or try different things to find what we enjoy and what works for us. There are thousands of approaches, but the common theme in successful plans is that people stick to them, so by finding a way to enjoy the process and stay on track, we’ll be far more likely to achieve our goals.
Alternatives:
Accept that it is a long term endeavour, and find ways to enjoy the process. Try different routines or elements because you want to try them, not because you have to reach a goal. It’s not all fun and games, but there’s no reason we can’t enjoy some aspects of the process.
Make small, sustainable changes over time. Going from 0 to 1 run a week, or adding some extra protein sources to our lunch might not seem like much in the beginning, but achieving it and sticking to it lays the foundation for the next step/improvement. This lays the foundation for the next step, and so on.
Ask yourself why you “need” immediate results? If it’s based on an emotion, is it a rational feeling we should act on (concerns health, want to try something new, etc) or an irrational feeling that we should acknowledge but not act on (someone made a negative comment, envy, frustration, etc)? Are you letting it define you, and ignoring great aspects of who you are? Why?
3. To Impress Someone or a Group
Infatuation, insecurity or even just the desire to fit in can be powerful motivators, but this doesn’t mean they’re pushing us somewhere meaningful or lasting. Whether it’s to impress a bunch of strangers or one person in particular, there’s no guarantee we’ll get what we truly want, or hold on to it for long. The initial attention or security may feel good but it wears off pretty quickly, on both sides. So if we don’t find other ways to connect, making this the only thing we have in common, we’ll need to be constantly impressing or outraging people to maintain the relationship. Not the most sustainable plan.
If they are the only reason we’re doing this, the entire pursuit can become a waste of time if we don’t get what we’re looking for. Or worse, we may get exactly what we’re looking for, and the reality doesn’t match our imagination or expectation.
To avoid this, the attention we receive or interactions we have should be viewed as a bonus, not the driving factor. By pursuing a new activity for ourselves (enjoyment or improvement), we can identify what we truly want to do and enjoy the process much more, succeeding by simply doing what we want to do or overcoming our own challenges. We can also think much clearer about what to do next - not that we should flat out ignore any advice or opinions from other people, but we can weigh it up more appropriately instead of jumping to “they said I should do it, so I will” without further thought. There are many levels between “casual” and “hardcore”, and even more philosophies and styles on how to approach them, and what works for one person might not work for the next. Feel free to experiment and choose your own adventure.
While it can certainly be scary doing something different or in opposition to popular trends, this is a small price to pay for being true to yourself and making decisions that positively impact your life.
Alternatives:
Is this what we truly want to do (thinking long term), or is it some that satisfies a short term emotion or feeling?
Would we be doing this if no one else knew about it?
Is this the only thing in common we have with that person/group? Is there anyone doing what we want to do that we could connect with instead?
4. Tradition or Social Pressure
January is the month of “new year, new me”, making it the most popular time to start a new fitness or diet program. This does provide a great opportunity to try something new or kick off the year with something different, even joining others as they do the same, but it doesn’t mean this is the only time of year to do so. Nor does it grant extra “sticking power” to help us keep up new habits, we still need discipline and solid planning to give us the best chance at making lasting changes.
January can be tough enough recovering from Christmas time, new year festivities and the cold, so there’s no need to stretch ourselves further if we need some time just to get back to normality. Particularly this year after all the lockdowns, pandemic and hard adjustments, we may be better off taking some time to rest and rebuild, before diving into a new challenge. I feel this has an overlap with the previous point (impress someone or a group), but as we may be thinking of it more of as a tradition or a social idea, there may not be a defined “group” that we’re trying to fit into or impress - more of a general idea of “people”, “they” or “what society/everyone thinks” than specific individuals. Regardless, just because it’s popular or “what we’ve always done” doesn’t mean it is the best for our life or our individual situation. Some compromises or changes may need to be made, but we can only identify these by thinking about what’s important to us and where we’re wanting to go.
Alternatives:
Do we need to start this now? Any time of year is a great time to make improvements or try something new, but do we need to take on additional trials right now?
Are we doing this because we want to, or because other people are doing it?
5. A Distraction from Greater Problems
As far as distractions or procrastination goes, we can do a lot worse than improving our diet or exercise levels. In fact, a quick walk or doing some cooking can be a great way to relieve stress and clear our head, so why does this make it to the list? Here we’re talking about when we’re assigning more time and energy than it really needs - to the point we’re abandoning more important responsibilities or people just to workout or pursue “a lifestyle”. When we’re spending more time escaping than dealing with life’s hardships. Working out might feel great and help us get some space from an issue, but it’s unlikely to magically change our relationships or career by itself. We still need to return to the world outside the gym or healthy eating from time to time.
Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with taking on great challenges, just remember they’ll require more time, energy and sacrifice than most things - so make sure it’s truly worth the effort, or that we are committing to a level that is sustainable. This will look different for everyone, and can change over time, so just check in with yourself every now and then.
Alternatives:
Is this preventing us from doing something we should be doing - intentionally or unintentionally? Can we work around it or find a balance?
Find a balance of enjoying exercise or healthy diet as part of your life, instead of letting it become your life. Even fitness professionals and world champions have some hobbies and other interests outside of diet and exercise.