Your Self-Destruct Button
You have a big, red “SELF-DESTRUCT” button on your chest.
I’m at the table, and my friends are ordering foods I should not have. The server is making her way around to me; eyes are on me! What do I pick?! The salad or the burger, salad or burger?! Jesus Christ, why can’t we just get drunk and play Twister instead!?
Look, when I want a burger, endless chips, cheese dip, and a cocktail, it’s not because I genuinely want those things. It’s because I took too drastic of a step toward dieting, and NOW my unprepared brain wants to course-correct back to my original state of being before I began dieting.
It’s a trap. Here’s what you think + what’s really going to happen.
You think: “I’ll eat badly this one time and get back on track (reset) right after, and I’ll be back on my way to my goal tomorrow.”
Thats hitting the self-destruct button. Here’s why.
In your brain, you create this low-probability scenario where you can jump off the deep end, reset the next day, and your body, your brain, and your self-confidence will somehow forgive all.
It doesn’t work, but you know that.
You can’t hit reset. It doesn’t exist. But you can always re-invent.
This isn’t Nintendo, but you can re-invent the situation by looking at how your diet change was too drastic and shrinking it.
Gave up bread, but you LOVE it? Try moving to wheat instead of white, then to whole grain, then to Daves Killer bread, then try to reduce the bread you eat by 50%. See if that works over 4-6 weeks. Guess what? You can’t run off the deep end with that solution.
Making a 10% change every week or month will take you further than a 30% or 50% change made Sunday afternoon before you go grocery shopping.
Two or three little steps are the same as a big step.
A big step forward and an even bigger step backward (reset) is still moving backward, PLUS you damage your confidence.
I’ll be signing off my posts with unhinged email signatures because no one is the boss of me.
Size Matters,
J
