Why Breaking Your Diet Plan Does Not Ruin Your Weight Loss Progress
Did you spend a weekend traveling, and eating out every night? Was your family’s traditional Thanksgiving sides something you just couldn’t say no to?
Are you worried that the scale went up and there’s no going back? Do you crave carbs again? Maybe you feel like you’re now controlled by some other force outside your body, and everything you have done over the last month is now worthless?
Have you ever broken your diet plan and had these thoughts whirling around in your mind? I HAVE!
But the first thing I need to tell you, that I have told countless women throughout my years of coaching, is that BREAKING YOUR DIET DOES NOT MEAN YOUR WEIGHT LOSS PROGRESS IS OVER.
One High-Calorie Meal Does Not Ruin All of Weight Loss Progress
I know you may not believe me right now. Maybe you’re in a self-sabotage spiral, and it’s hard for you to find the positive in anything.
You might even think I’m downright crazy.
But I’m right. Your progress is not over, and not even a week’s worth of high-calorie meals can change that.
This is a journey after all, so if you’re ready to get back on track, I’m ready to help you.
So, What Do You Do Now?
1. Write down what happened
I want you to sit down with your journal and write about what you were thinking about leading up to and during those moments that you broke your diet plan. Don’t get into the specifics of what you ate, we will do that later. For now, just write about what you were thinking.
And write all the thoughts, every last one of them. The only way to move forward is if you can shed light on the thought patterns that have been ingrained in your actions for so long.
Some common examples might be:
I deserve this
It’s been a long week
I’m not losing weight anyways
Remember not to judge your thoughts here. This first step is all about uncovering what was going on. Do not try to correct or change what you were thinking because you feel like it’s bad. Be honest with yourself and the thoughts you had.
2. Track Everything You Ate
Add it all up. Don’t be shy, and don’t lie.
Log everything according to your specific plan. For example, if you are Keto, look at your macro breakdown. If you are following Weight Watchers, log everything and determine how many points you used.
Pretending it didn’t happen is not going to help you grow. You will never learn from this experience if you don’t approach it head-on. You will never build a good relationship with your weight loss progress if you don’t hold yourself accountable.
An amazing thing that you might see happening is that you actually ate a lot less than you thought, but you would never have known this if you didn’t reflect in this way.
3. Reflect & Move Forward
If you were honest with yourself in the first two steps, this is where you will really start learning from your past mistakes.
Analyze Everything You Ate:
Look at that list you made of everything you ate over the period that you broke your diet plan.
If you stepped on the scale and saw the number increase, did you really gain that weight, or is it just a temporary result of what you ate?
There are many reasons the scale can go up that have nothing to do with breaking your diet plan.
Take the emotion out of the scale and let’s analyze what you ate.
If you are doing Keto, look at how many carbs you ate. Carbohydrates actually hold more water, which could be the main reason the scale went up. It’s not added fat, it’s just water weight!
If you are counting your calories, it’s no different. Did you really eat 3500 EXTRA calories, which would be equivalent to 1 pound of fat? That would mean 3500 on top of your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). If the scale went up 2 pounds did you really eat 7000 EXTRA calories?
I have a feeling you didn’t.
Things start to spiral when you ‘know’ you broke your diet plan and you think you are going to see a spike in the numbers on your scale. Then, you’ll start to think you blew it and you’ll start running in the opposite direction from real growth.
I know that it can be scary to feel like you failed and ruined all of your weight loss progress, but that’s not what this is. It’s just a lesson that you need to learn from.
It was one meal. One day. One weekend. Get back on track, and if you can’t do it alone, get the accountability and support that you need.
Adjust Your Thoughts
Now it’s time for the final piece you need to face in order to move forward.
Take a look at the thoughts you wrote down. Can you see the correlation between those thoughts and the food choices you logged?
If we approach this scenario with a self-coaching model, we will see that those thoughts cause feelings, which we take action on, and that ends up leading to the results in our lives.
For example, let’s play out the thought, ‘I deserve this.’
When you think this thought, what feelings does it give you? For me, that thought makes me feel indulgent or justified. Then, I take action and eat whatever I want, which would result in me not following my eating protocol and feeling crappy or guilty.
So now that you know why you made the choices you made, how can you adjust for the future?
As you continue this process of writing everything down and being honest with yourself, you will begin to notice what you think before you take action on it.
Practice pausing long enough, fully feeling the urge, and knowing it won’t kill you just to feel it. Then, examine what is really going on beneath the surface, because we know it’s never just about the food.
Let’s look at the “I deserve this” example from above, but with a more self-aware approach.
I see that there are cookies on the counter, but instead of letting the thought, “I deserve this” drive my action, I start to adjust my thinking. Instead, I could think:
I would really like that because it’s been a long week, but there are other things I can do to unwind
I feel like I need a little comfort right now, maybe I will get a journal and figure out what’s going on inside
(The one that works best for me) If I eat that I will feel like crap and have to deal with the guilt of not following through on my goals, and I will be moving away from the woman I want to become.
That final thought directly leads to a feeling of self-control, empowerment, and hope, and because of that, I would take the action to skip the cookie, which would result in my continued success, not breaking my diet plan, and maintaining my weight loss progress.
At first, this process will take time. It is hard to learn to pause through the urge, rather than stuff our face before we give ourselves a chance to be self-aware.
A true weight loss journey is all about taking control of your thoughts and feelings, so you can see yourself acting the way you truly want. Our brains are so strong, and as much as they push against change to stay in a state of comfort, we need to stay consistent and realize that this is not a sprint.
Mistakes will be made, but if we learn from them, that’s where the growth really happens.
I believe in you! We can all do it if we have the right tools in place. If you realize you need some extra accountability, I would love to talk with you.
I will always have a coach in my life because I know how important it is to have someone to support you when you need it. Set up a call today, and let’s get you back on track!