Navigating The Middle, Why the “all or nothing” approach never works long term

Are you an “all or nothing” type of person?

If you answered “yes”, you’re in good company because I have been that way for as long as I can remember. 

This personality trait has been a key player with regards to my success in becoming an Emergency Medicine Physician and running a successful coaching business; however, with regards to weight loss, the “all or nothing” approach was detrimental to my success. It led to years of yo-yo dieting until I finally got it together and learned to navigate the middle. 

What do I mean when I say “navigate the middle”? 

It’s all about finding lifestyle changes that are sustainable.  One of the main  reasons people have difficulty keeping the weight off after reaching their goal, is they never changed their lifestyle. They may have dieted and worked hard; however, once they reach their goal they reverted to the old habits that led to the initial weight gain.

Lose weight and keep it off!

If you want to keep the weight off, you have to keep doing the things that helped you to lose the weight in the first place. For example, if you were consuming 1800 calories per day, exercising 5 times a week, and cooking at home to lose weight then you decided to stop exercising and started eating out every day,  it’s inevitable that you would regain some of the weight you initially lost.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there is more flexibility with maintenance than there is in the weight loss phase, but you cannot go back to your old habits and expect not to gain weight.

Have you ever met those people who can eat whatever they want without gaining a single pound? Those people are few and far between. I remember wanting to be one of those “lucky” people so badly as a teenager.

Have you ever heard the term “you can’t out-exercise a bad diet?”. Well it’s true. I tried it. Of course, I ended up gaining weight during my experiment. It was very disappointing lol. I remember people saying “you need to make a lifestyle”. For some reason, that statement used to be very annoying to me because I thought that meant I had to diet forever.

Eventually I came to my senses and realized that I needed to teach myself how to navigate the middle. So that’s what I did. I worked on developing sustainable healthy habits (e.g. eating mostly Whole Foods, drinking water, exercising regularly, and developing my mindset for success). I realized that I needed to create these habits over time and that they needed to be enjoyable in order for me to be able to sustain them over time. 

Occasional indulgences are important…

I also allowed myself to have occasional indulgences. When I began to do that, the need to enter the “nothing” zone (which would always end up in a binge-diet yo-yo cycle) became necessary.

As you know, humans want what we can’t have. if you plan your indulgences, your brain will realize you’re allowed to indulge from time to time, so there’ll be no need to binge. 

You’re not alone!

You don’t have to do this alone. I’ve helped many clients achieve success. I’d love to help you learn to navigate the middle. Schedule your free consultation today!