Do you struggle to stick to a diet or exercise routine long enough to ever see sustainable results? 
Do you find yourself in a constant cycle of yo-yo dieting or constantly burning out or getting injured when it comes to exercise that you never seem to get any closer to achieving your goals. How often have you set a goal such as losing a certain amount of weight in a given amount of time? 
You start out all enthusiastically being 100% perfect only to find after one week that you are hungry and craving all sorts of things. These cravings more often than not lead to binge eating and you eventually throw in the towel. Or maybe in this quest to lose weight, you decide to embark on a crazy exercise program on a mission to burn 500 calories a day. You feel fantastic the first 3 days but by day 4 you wake up hobbling and injured and completely demotivated to continue. 
Does this sound familiar? I think we have all experienced this at some point in our lives and very possibly many of us are still struggling with it right now!
THE 3 BIGGEST MISTAKES MOST OF US MAKE ARE :
- We try to be perfect 100% of the time with an ‘All or Nothing’ approach
- We expect too much too soon
- We try to do too much too soon
The problem with these strategies is that none of them are sustainable in the long term and mostly just lead to us feeling overwhelmed, demotivated and with a sense that we have failed
TIPS TO SET YOURSELF UP FOR SUCCESS
DITCH THE ‘ALL OR NOTHING’ APPROACH
Try Shifting to an ‘Always Something’ mindset. This is going to lead to consistent progress. Doing something small everyday consistently is definitely better than doing nothing or trying to do everything at once. Try not to be so rigid when it comes to diet and exercise, allow some flexibility and make sure that you have balance in all aspects of your life for overall health and vitality
CHOOSE A 5 MINUTE ACTION PLAN
Decide on something that you are going to do everyday for the next 2 weeks that is going to help you build a new healthy habit. Choose something that will add value to your health and move you closer to reaching your goals. It needs to be easier enough that on a scale of 1-10 you can confidently score a 9 or 10 out of 10 everyday no matter what. If your score is less than a 9 then it’s going to be too challenging. So on your absolute worst day no matter how bad things get, you should still be able to confidently commit to completing it. On good days you will probably do more which is a bonus but be careful not to do too much too soon. The idea behind this, and something that I coach in my Nutrition Coaching Program, is that the more we practice something everyday, the more it becomes ingrained into our daily routine and gets easier over time so that eventually you just do it automatically with very little thought or effort.
If you are someone that really struggles to exercise consistently then choosing fitness as your 5 minute action plan would be an excellent start. Over time it will get easier and easier and eventually you will confidently be able to train 45-60 minutes 3-5 times a week, but the idea is that on the ‘in between’ days you still practice the 5 minute action with what we call ‘active recovery’ which could be a little walk or just stretching for 5 minutes so that this daily practice basically becomes a life time habit. 
Another handy tip is to use a habit tracker – this can be just a daily manual entry into a journal or you can create a spreadsheet. Each day you complete your 5 minute action, tick it off, this will not only help you to stay accountable but will give you a sense of accomplishment every time you complete it and a feeling of success knowing that after 2 weeks you have started building a consistent healthy habit.
CHOOSE FOODS ALONG A CONTINUUM
Stop thinking about foods as good or bad but rather along a continuum where you choose to make ‘slightly better’ choices one step at a time. Rather than the all or nothing restrictive approach, think how you can make a meal slightly better than before. Start with maybe one meal a day to try this, or if that feels too overwhelming just choose a few meals a week, whatever you are comfortable with.
Remember be careful not to try too much too soon. 
If your food choices are too restrictive this is counterproductive and instead of leading to progress it just drives us into that yo-yo dieting cycle: Deprivation followed by carb cravings which will ultimately lead to binge eating and then extreme feelings of guilt which throw us back into the cycle of restrictive eating again.
Let’s take an example of going out and ordering a hamburger with the bun with a slice of cheese and chips. 
A better option could be to make the burger patty from scratch from lean mince meat, maybe you are ready to toss the bun but if not that’s okay. Instead of the cheese you could try some fat free smooth cottage cheese, and maybe try a salad instead of chips but if that is too much of a change, then try make some sweet potato fries with a bit of olive oil or in the air fryer if you have one.
TO SUM UP
Just remember that building habits and skills is a life journey, it doesn’t happen overnight and there isn’t an end date. We need to constantly keep working on our health and maintaining it as a lifestyle.
But it is not about perfection, it is about progress. Making small positive changes one step at a time is what is going to lead to progress and if practiced consistently, will lead to be big results in the long run.
So start today with that 5 minute action plan, what are you waiting for ?
To learn more about my other services that I offer such as Online Personal Training Packages, visit https://lifestylecoachmr.com/services
