Stop believing this 1 myth to reach your health goals faster

One of the biggest myths in the health and nutrition world is that everything is black and white. You’re either in or you’re out. You’re on track or you’re off track. But that’s not how being healthy actually works.

If it did, every single person would be unhealthy! We all have something that we do that’s “unhealthy.”

I used to post about what I ate on social media, and any time I drank a diet soda or used sugar-free syrups in my coffee, I would get ripped apart in the comments section.

“Diet soda is worse for you than regular soda!”

“Sugar-free things are loaded with horrible chemicals!”

“I can’t believe you’re teaching people to eat like this!”

No matter what I did or said I couldn’t be “right” for everyone, and that’s when I really learned the lesson healthy living isn’t one-size-fits-all.

It would be awesome if we could all eat the same things and work out the same and be fit and healthy. But that’s not how humans work!

We’re messy and complicated and unique. And it’s our uniqueness that makes life beautiful! So instead of trying to conform to fit into someone else’s definitions of healthy, you need to discover what that is for yourself.

I want to show you how to get out of that black-and-white thinking and start finding the beauty in your weight loss or healthy living journey.

Weight loss doesn’t require perfection

I am a recovering perfectionist. I used to think that in order to love my body I had to eat nothing but organic veggies, and free-range chicken breasts. I also thought I had to hit the gym for a minimum of an hour a day and I had to work out until I was either drenched in sweat or couldn’t move anymore.

I believed perfection was the only way to achieve my goals. And I lived like that for a while. I competed in a bodybuilding competition. I meticulously watched every single thing I ate or drank. I spent hours training and perfecting each muscle. I did everything “just right.”

I thought this perfection would make me happy. I finally looked the best I ever had and according to what I had been told, I should be happier than I had ever been. A perfect body equals loving your body, right?

But I didn’t love myself. I kept pointing out everything that was still wrong with my body - just like I had before the competition.

Perfection hadn’t brought me happiness. But it had brought me burnout. I was so tired of having to be perfect that I wanted to just give up completely and eat whatever I wanted and never work out again.

But I knew that wasn’t going to make me happy either. What I needed was a balance between doing everything perfectly and completely throwing in the towel.

So I did something crazy, I allowed myself to be imperfect.

Now, that doesn’t mean I stopped caring and did whatever I wanted. It just meant that I didn’t need to be 100% perfect all the time.

I aimed for close to perfect. Instead of striving for 100%, I strived for 80%. I wanted to be within my nutritional boundaries 80% of the time and the other 20% of the time it was ok if I was off.

Mama, this was not easy! The need to be perfect is strong, but I needed to see for myself if imperfection could still get me the results I wanted, and it did.

When I stopped trying to get it just right, it got easier. I released so much stress and pressure that it made it infinitely easier to start seeing results.

What I learned was that perfection isn’t required for weight loss but consistency was.

Reframe your efforts to build yourself up

When you’re in an all-or-nothing, black-and-white all-in, all-out mindset, you don’t always realize that you are actually making progress toward your goals. But when you’re making consistent effort, you do make progress.

We usually make failure mean we didn’t hit our goal completely. But, what does failure actually look like?

If you set a goal to “eat healthily” what would failure look like? Would eating out once a week be a failure? Would having a cupcake, brownie or cookie mean you failed?

If you’re stuck in a perfectionist mindset, one “unhealthy” or “off” choice would mean you failed, right?

But what if you were looking at it through an 80/20 mindset? Then one meal that didn’t align with your goals wouldn’t be such a big deal, right? One off-meal would actually mean you went above your goal! You hit 90/10, instead of 80/20.

True failure is a big, fat zero. It’s not doing anything that moves you toward your goals. Anything above that is progress! So if you even hit your goal once a week, you’ve made progress on your goals.

Mama, please give up this all-or-nothing perfection mindset that is keeping you stuck! Every time you make healthier choices than you would have before, it’s a win! When you start looking at your life through that frame you’ll be surprised how much easier it is to stick to a healthy diet!

If you don’t think that you can get over your perfection mindset on your own, then let’s work together! I’ve been through that challenge and know how to help you get through it too! Schedule a free discovery call if you’re done beating yourself up and ready to enjoy a healthy, guilt-free life.