During a point in my food logging history I put a lot of pressure on myself to be as perfect as possible.
Looking back, I think what was going through my mind was that if I was as accurate as possible I would get better results.
I had an all or nothing mindset.
I began to think if I couldn’t do it perfectly why even bother doing it at all?
I would end up “screwing up” my macros early in the day, or eating something too high in fat or carbs before logging it. Realizing that the numbers were going to be really hard to balance at the end of the day I would just give up and stop tracking.
This would often happen to me while travelling, during social events or going out to eat. Basically when I had less control over what I had available to eat.
Although I would feel very frustrated after a day like this, the funny thing was that, in the end, I still ended up getting the results I was after.
Proving to myself in the most backwards way possible that I didn’t have to be perfect to see results.
A good lesson learnt.
I still try my best AND encourage the people I work with to do their best, to plan ahead, meal prep, schedule their meals, plan out a day ahead of time, but sometimes life happen and thing don’t always go as planned.
Also, having the awareness that not every day is going to be perfect, or that some situations will be less ideal than others can help us mentally prepare for a day to not be perfect. And with this awareness we can still do our very best that day.
Moral of the story…
Do your very best and show up for yourself everyday. Be aware that things are not always going go as planned, that’s okay! Pick yourself back up tomorrow.
Have you ever struggled with an all or nothing mindset set?
