Learning to forgive yourself quickly and treat minor, human blips as a temporary deviation from your wellbeing plan (not a personal failing and catastrophe that sets about a string of sabotaging “I’ve blown it until Monday” food choices) ensures that overall, you make more helpful choices than unhelpful ones in the pursuit of weight loss.
Difficult choices for new routines become easier when we feel resilient, calm, and capable, so it serves us in the pursuit of changing our eating habits to engage in as many choices as possible that leave us feeling those ways.
If changing your eating habits and managing your weight remains the greatest lifelong challenge you face (a reality that causes my highly intelligent, accomplished and impressive clients to question everything from their intelligence to their worthiness) then learning to withstand short-term discomfort will equip you with a proven tool kit of transferable impulse control skills.
What you need to do instead, is focus on identifying (and intentionally repeating) the new daily choices that you will have to normalise and master in order to maintain your weight loss long-term, whether that is regarding portion control or avoiding snacks, for example.
Their repeated unsuccessful attempts to lose — or keep off — weight leave them trusting themselves less, choosing more punishing plans, and beating themselves up when they don’t manage to keep up their plans perfectly.
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