One of the biggest mistakes I see with clients who want to lose weight, (as well as other goals) is thinking that one small deviation from the plan, or one small slip up won’t make a big difference with their results.
This is true with both skipping training, and with ‘slipping up’ on their food plan.
A big part of the recommendations we give to clients is to eliminate processed, man made foods from their diet, things like bread, pasta, biscuits, muffins, breakfast cereals, chips, wraps, noodles, sweets, juice, soft drinks, alcohol etc.
In doing this you will be effectively removing wheat, gluten, dairy, sugar and a bunch of artificial additives, sweeteners, and preservatives which are very common foods for people to have intolerance’s and sensitivities to, often without even realizing it.
If you are regularly eating foods which you have an intolerance or sensitivity too you can experience symptoms such as weight gain, digestive issues, bloating, energy problems, tiredness, increased inflammation (aches, pains, stiffness), weakened immune system, headaches, anxiety, skin conditions, and a host of other not so lovely things.
If you suffer from any of the above it’s worth having a think about what you’re eating on a regular basis, which may be causing or at least contributing to the issue. I firmly believe this is a big factor for most people trying to lose weight and get healthy.
So apart from the fact they you’ll substantially drop your calories when you remove all of these foods and replace with natural foods humans are supposed to eat – over time, it will have a systemic, ‘cleansing’ effect throughout your whole body, basically like a ‘detox’.
After years and years of eating poor quality processed foods, and then eliminating them altogether from your diet, after a few weeks you’ll notice there is a flow on effect of good things that happen to reverse your body’s tendency to readily store body fat, and succumb to the not so lovely ailments mentioned above.
Your liver will start to clean itself up, and your body’s hormone levels will start to level out, your gut health and digestion will improve, and your metabolism will improve, resulting in a compounding effect of accelerated fat loss the longer you stick to the plan without ‘slipping up’.
You can take supplements like digestive enzymes, probiotics and various herbs to help with this process depending on the extent of your issues and what you have to overcome.
(If you do feel you might have some of these issues I’d be happy to have a chat to you about it, and if need be I can refer you on to someone who can help you more specifically diagnose and treat it. )
So the longer you stick to the plan without deviating, the better standing you’ll be in to see results, sometimes it can take time and it’s because in many cases the body needs time to start working ‘properly’. It isn’t always possible to reverse years of unhealthy eating with a few weeks of eating better, it’s important to be realistic about this and instead of getting disheartened with the process, just know that it’s something to be expected. If anything, if you’re in this situation it’s MORE of a reason not to slip up on your eating plan.
The thing is, when you have just 1 slip up, it’s often like pressing the ‘reboot’ button on a computer. How annoying is it when that happens accidentally?
You’ve been working hard on something, and now you have to wait for the computer to load back up and start at the beginning again…
This is often what happens to your body when you slip up after eating really well for 1 week and have that 1 piece of bread, or 1 bowl of pasta you didn’t think would be a problem. You have to ‘reboot’ and start back at the beginning, wait for your system to clear up and your body to start working better again.
This happens to the best of us, even my wife, who is married to a really annoying personal trainer. She knows that she is intolerant to dairy, it makes her feel tired, lethargic and messes with her digestive system. If she avoids dairy for weeks on end she loses weight and feels much better.
But to start to feel the benefits of removing dairy from her diet, she has to stay off it for a good week before it clears out of her body totally.
SO many times I’ve seen her remove dairy for 1 week, start to feel good and then ‘reboot’ her system by having a cappuccino from a café during a moment of weakness. Time to reboot and start all over again…
Apart from the physiological effects 1 slip up can make on your progress, it also has an effect on your self esteem and the subconscious beliefs you have about yourself. Every time you break a promise to yourself you’re ingraining a pattern of failure. So the next time you tell yourself you’re going to ‘start being healthy from Monday’, deep in the back of your mind you know that you won’t stick to it, because you know you never do.
1 slip up or deviation from the plan DOES make a difference no matter how you justify it to yourself.
So when you’re doing well and sticking to the plan for a few weeks and it feels like you’re not seeing all the results you had hoped, just know that it’s normal and sometimes it can take some time. Be realistic with your expectations and honest with yourself about what you’re trying to overcome and the level of effort and discipline you’re going to have to put in to get the results you want. If you’ve spent many years eating poorly then yes, you might have some metabolic issues which could take a few weeks of avoiding bad foods without ANY deviation or ‘ ‘slip up’ before your body starts to fix itself up and responding the way you’d like. Just like I mentioned above you might need some added supplements to help with the process.
Just remember your body will reflect the lifestyle you live, over time – over months and years….NOT what you can squeeze in to a 4 week health kick.
It’s important not to be impatient, you might not feel things are progressing on the outside at the moment, but it’s just as important to make first make progress on the inside in many cases. Good things will start to happen if you continue doing what you’re doing and leading a good, healthy lifestyle.
I’m a sucker for a good inspirational quote, you may have heard this one before…
At 99 degrees, water is just hot.
At 100 degrees it boils…
When water reaches boiling point, it creates steam…
which can power a train.
When you build up to it, that one tiny degree can literally mean the difference between being able to move a train or not.
The tiniest bit of change and progress can make a HUGE difference…
So remember that the little things do count, and even when you think you’re not getting anywhere you might just be that one degree off some big changes,
Just try not to slip up, ‘reboot’ yourself and have to start over.
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