When you’re trying to change your lifestyle for the better, chances are that you’re going to slip up every now and then. It’s quite common with weight loss in particular to “fall off the wagon”, by reverting back to poor eating habits while trying to follow an improved nutritional regime.
Consistently falling off the wagon is a sure sign that your approach is unsustainable. This is commonplace with diets, where the focus is on short-term and fast weight loss, rather than on sustained weight loss indefinitely.
Though, even if you are trying to approach weight loss with a long-term perspective in mind, it is quite possible that you will succumb to a binge, no matter how minor it may be. So when you do fall off the wagon, how do you get straight back on it?
The important aspect to focus on is the long-term effect of your slip-up. The problem with dieting is that the focus is on short-term, so eating even a minute amount of junk food is sure to make you feel guilt ridden, because you would have affected your progress in the short-term.
But here’s the thing, a piece of cake is going to have a near negligible effect on your weight loss in the long-term. Let’s say a piece of cake is 500 calories…over the course of a month, that’s less than 20 calories per day if we were to spread out those calories contained within.
Ultimately it’s not the food that you consume that causes you to fall off the wagon and thus jeopardising your long-term efforts. Rather, it’s the negative emotions Rather, the negative emotions associated with eating a food “off the plan” is what will cause you to fall off the wagon.
Guilt and discouragement in particular are two very common symptoms of a binge. If you want to lose a notable amount of weight, you’ll find that one binge on one day is not going to affect your progress in the long-term. What is going to affect your weight loss progress is the guilt and discouragement associated with this binge which leads you to cease trying to lose weight altogether.
How to get around these emotions? Well, it’s not easy – but if you can, then you’re on the path to success. Always put things into perspective relative to the long-term, because after all, weight loss is a long-term endeavour. Focusing on the short-term will set you up for failure.
Remember, that extra food that you ate will have very little bearing on your long-term progress. The decision that you make right now to pursue your weight loss goals will determine your results in the future – not your actions in the past.
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