I tried at least 10 times to write something on having goals around healthy eating and just couldn’t come up with something decent. Its easy to tell people to do certain things when its easy for you. You might be passionate about it or just fortunate enough to enjoy it, so telling other people how easy it is can be a big mistake. You don’t know anything about them or certainly not enough to dictate what kind of lifestyle they should lead. So I asked a friend of mine who I knew was passionate about it but also at the same time found it difficult.

This is her story.

So you’ve jumped on the weight loss bandwagon and you’ve set yourself the following goals “stop binge eating, cut my calories and not eat carbs or dairy”. You’re going to workout every day, twice a day on days that allow and take on the mentality to “train insane or remain the same”. You slave away at cardio sessions, burning a hole in the treadmill or the gym floor at Body Attack with little to no energy and running on pure motivation.

The best part comes when you weigh yourself the next morning, the scale has dropped by 1kg. You do a fist pump and scream out “Yesssss!” I’ve nailed it. I’ll just keep this up and I’ll be a skinny minnie in no time. You are so inspired so you push yourself even harder.

But Then….

All of a sudden the scale stops moving, and you stop losing weight, and you think to yourself “Whattt? I haven’t eaten any bad food, I cut out carbs & diary, I trained every day, twice a day some days, I even said no to the office birthday cake at work!Are you serious??”

You lose motivation for a day and you think it has got to be retained water, my period is on the way. Yep that’s all it is. And so you convince yourself to go harder and faster at training and even look at cutting your calories by another 100 per day. You’re now weighing yourself everyday (obsessively). If the scales goes up by .5kg you are like a demon for the day, if the scales goes down you are the world’s nicest person! This weekly routine continues for weeks and weeks.

Until. . .

You’ve decided to have a Friday night in. You’ve come home from work, you’ve kept to your calorie intake and declined yet another office birthday cake. You’re in fabulous form, you pop on your pj’s and turn on the tv. Suddenly your metaphorical phone begins to ring.
It’s sugar, and it’s for you. “Oh god seriously, go away! I’ve been so good for the past 8 weeks. 1 piece of chocolate won’t kill me. I’ll just do an extra 30mins in the gym to make up for it. Oh my god I would murder Ben and Jerry’s phish food right now.” You pop across to the shop and as soon as the sugary, blissful chocolate hits your tongue, the rush begins.

Before you know it, a packet of biscuits, block of chocolate, a tub of ice cream and whatever else you can get your hands on is regretfully moving through your digestive system. And you feel like shit.
Suddenly you’re wishing that you ignored the temptation.
The next morning….you hop on the scales and you’ve gained 3kg. You think what’s the point. Your obsessive binging continues, you pile back on all the weight you lost and even a few more lbs!

As the old saying goes, “nothing that comes easy is worth having”. And the same applies when dealing with a lifestyle change. The two biggest things to maintain are a healthy meal plan and being able to control sugar cravings. You’re also setting yourself up for failure by obsessively exercising without a healthy meal plan and I’m not talking about a ridiculous diet. So many people suffer from stress, insulin resistance, hormonal imbalances, all of which leads to spikes in sugar cravings which result in these urges to binge. It’s a vicious circle.

So instead of setting yourself goals that can’t be maintained, reassess and make a conscious effort to find healthy alternatives to your favourite foods, (don’t chew gum as a food substitute- sugar free or not. Believe me it WILL become an addiction!) don’t cut carbs, choose alternative wisely, don’t starve yourself and definitely have a cheat meal once a week. (not a cheat day!!)