You don’t have to be ON or perfect all the time!
In fact, it might be better if you’re not!
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You don’t have to be ON or perfect all the time!
In fact, it might be better if you’re not!
There’s a potential downside to aiming for perfection with anything. I mean, even Hermione couldn’t handle it after a time… IYKYK.
Harry Potter references aside, any time we aim for perfection, we are in danger of falling off the plan if we can’t maintain the perfection, and this can cause us to give up completely.
Using a nutrition example… let’s say you’re aiming to track your food and aim for specific macros. You hit them perfectly for 7 days, but then your kid gets sick, you miss a meal while caring for them, your macros get a little messed up halfway through Day 8, you say fuck it, and eat a whole pizza, a whole pint of ice cream, drink a bottle of wine, and zero vegetables for the rest of the day. All because your perfection got thrown off.
What if, instead, you understood that perfection is NOT the goal? Then, that one meal thats “off” half way through Day 8 is NOT the end of the world, and you can have a slice of pizza, and then get back to your plan as closely as possible afterwards. There we go. A much more balanced and reasonable (not to mention much more sustainable long term!) approach to our food.
Kinda like this graphic from Precision Nutrition shows:
What if we put this same approach into a bigger picture idea?
In my opinion, I think it's totally fair and normal to go through periods in our lives/year when we focus different amounts. For example, some of us tend to be slightly more lenient with our food plans during the summer. And I think that’s totally okay, as long as you realize that that’s what’s happening and it’s a conscious choice to do so. That way you’re not expecting different outcomes than what you’re setting yourself up for. Like, you’re not having 3-5 extra alcoholic beverages per week, not otherwise adjusting your intake, and still expecting yourself to lose 2 pounds a week. Alternatively, if you KNOW you’re making the choice to have those extra drinks and that they could very well impact your weight loss results, then fine, give yourself a little leeway during the summer if you want.
What I'm saying is, there's no need to get down on yourself for how you treat those drinks in the summer as long as you also see it as a non-permanent feature to your overall food plan.
It’s the awareness that’s critical. If you decide to be a little more lenient with some things, KNOWING that you’re doing so, and that your results may shift because of it, is important. This is critical because then we can reign in the leniency when we need to, or when the seasons of life shift (or the literal seasons do).
Another example here… Remember a few weeks ago when it was SUPER HOT out?! Well, due to the heat, I actively chose to spend less time walking or working out outside, which led to me moving less overall for those 2 weeks. And while I know that this shifted my overall caloric output through exercise, I was okay with it, because I would rather not suffer in the heat outside. Equally, as the temperatures have become a bit more moderate, I’ve increased my activity to pre-heatwave levels again. See? This was a non-permanent, active decision that I made and accepted the results of.
One last idea on this, which kind of speaks to the other side of the coin. There’s a difference between “not trying to be perfect all the time” and “creating excuses for why you can’t do things that are totally possible for you to do.”
Ohhhh, some real talk.
Hear me out. I’m certainly NOT saying that things don’t come up sometimes that are outside of our control and throw us off our plans. Yes, things come up and we should absolutely give ourselves grace sometimes. Truth.
However, sometimes we use smaller inconveniences as excuses for us NOT to do the things that speak towards our goals and that we’ve said are important to us.
Let’s say that you’ve created a goal for yourself to workout at the gym 3 times per week. You get to your third day of workouts and your boss calls you needing you to do an extra hour of work that cuts into your gym time.
Dang, your plans are totally thrown off!
Do you: A) forget about your workout, this was your boss’s fault, not yours, screw your goals for that third day of fitness? Or, B) figure out a way to do a 10 minute body-weight workout when you get home instead of spending an hour at the gym as you had planned?
Do you see the difference?
So, no, we don’t have to be perfect all the time. But, also, it’s worth making sure that you’re not making excuses to let yourself off the hook on the things you say you care about all the time either.
What do you guys think of these perspectives?? I’d love to hear your reactions; please share in the comments!
And if you know of someone who could benefit from reading this post, please share!
As always, thank you for reading!
xoxo,
Sara