How NOT to stick to your Diet

Yes you read that right…it was no mistake. This is all about not staying on track. Why? Because in order to stay on track there must be a track, a path, a set of rules that must be followed to stay healthy. If you take one wrong step, eat one too many chocolate muffins, miss a gym day you will simply fall off the bandwagon and it will leave you for dead.

People that take on this bandwagon mentality have three options when it comes to social interactions: 1. Miss them to avoid all possible slips of your diet 2. Restrict yourself of all the delicious food on offer at a party, or out at dinner and just order that salad because well salad is the healthy option right? 3. Fall. Fall, and then face a difficult long journey to getting back on track. You will follow the latest fad, train harder than ever and torture yourself with harmful mental thoughts until you just fall back off that wagon. Why? Because nothing about these options are sustainable.

We can have goals of going to the gym four times a week, hell that is exactly what I aim for. But then life gets in its way. I injured my wrist a week or so ago when I fell up some stairs (ok come on I can’t be the only clumsy one?). I could beat myself up about it, and how it means I had to miss out on the gym, or I can get on with my life and take this time to rest or and change up my routine.

Similar to that, we need to stop beating ourselves up when we eat a piece of cake, have a big bowl of pasta, or eat a little too much chocolate after dinner. What if instead of a single pathway to health we look at a day filled with a little to much sugar, a missed gym session as part of a lifestyle?

When taking adopting the perspective of a healthy lifestyle it means that we can strive to for a healthy nutritious diet and reach our goal of gym. It also means when we skip a gym session or eat too much chocolate cake one day it doesn’t matter. It’s not like you do it every day!

I grew up baking with my mother. Yes, that’s right, I grew up baking sugar-filled cakes, cookies, and slices. It is where my love for cooking started. So there is no way I am going to give up baking and cooking now (and enjoying the end product) simply to follow a diet. Ultimately in a lifestyle, there are no diets, regimes or single set of rules that must be followed for success.

Well just like life, there is no single set path to health. We have ups and downs; we have periods of increased social festivities, we eat cake on our birthday. When you adopt a healthy lifestyle there is no need to miss out on these or feel guilty for enjoying them. You can move freely through your life and you learn to love these ups and down, and ultimately you learn to love your body. In the end, it is not your actions; your missed gym days that make you fall off the path to health, it is your mindset.

You will find that when you maintain this mindset of balance and moderation it is much easier to maintain a healthy diet, but most importantly it is so much easier to live a happy life. You will never have to spend thousands on detoxes and you will never have to feel guilty for living your life because there is more to your life’s purpose than weight.

Shelley xx