17 Shares

5 Steps to Overcome Perfectionism and Stop Overeating
Have you ever struggled with perfectionism when it comes to your weight loss goals?

How do you feel when you can’t stick with it because you’re not perfect in your eating?

Do you ever give up on Wednesday and tell yourself you’ll start again on Monday, only to give up again and say you’ll “start again” next Monday?

Have you ever noticed doing “the start over” 52 times a year?

Perfectionism Is The Path to Struggle (and More Struggle)

The thing is…. perfectionism will never lead you to permanent weight loss. But hey! If you don’t want to keep off the weight you lose, then stop reading now.

On the other hand, if you are serious about losing weight and keeping it off, then perfectionism has to go.

Why?

Because it only derails you from your healthy living plan. You know what I mean – when you’re shooting for perfectionism is your eating, and you’re never perfect, but then you tell yourself “Ah, I blew it, I might as well eat whatever I want now…” and then what happens?

Then it’s time to binge. The binge eating followed by another diet of willpower on Monday followed by a lack of perfectionism and binge eating Wednesday through Sunday with some last supper eating thrown in….. well, this pattern is not a formula for successful weight loss. Make sense?

The Monday Someday Later Problem

The problem with this way of thinking is that Monday never really comes, at least not that Mythical Monday that is perfectionism in all ways.

If a regular Monday eventually arrives it can be months from now, after gaining another 10-20 pounds. This is why it’s so important to recognize the thought process that stems from perfectionism in the beginning, in order to save yourself all that struggle, pain, misery and lost time; time that could have been spent in getting closer to your goal weight, rather than further away from it.

So what starts you down the path of binge eating, emotional eating, and just plain overeating when you tell yourself you blew it because you weren’t perfect?

Let’s start back at the point when we ate that cookie or bowl of ice cream.

Ok, so that kind of food isn’t the healthiest choice, everyone knows this, you know it won’t help you get to your goal weight either, right? But if you already ate it then it’s done, and since it’s done…. it’s done.

What if you could just Stop Right There?

Read that again – what if you could just STOP right there? Instead of going on to eat more, and more, and more, because you “blew it” and weren’t perfect…..

So now you’re at the critical point where you can choose to make a conscious decision about what you will do next, rather than falling into old, unconscious patterns of guilt and self-recrimination, followed by a free-for-all in the kitchen.

So you might consider asking yourself…. whose are you comparing yourself to when you’re seeking this “perfect” way of eating?

Who said we must be perfect? We are human beings, and perfection is not listed anywhere in our list of “ingredients”.

Make sense?

5 Steps to Overcome Perfectionism and Stop Overeating

While there are millions who are struggling with food addiction, binge eating, emotional eating, overweight and obesity, not to mention plain ‘ole overeating, science will always win out when it comes to a battle between your desire to eat ice cream every day and your desire to lose weight.

The ice cream just isn’t going to give you that body you want. I know you don’t want to hear this, but how has that ever worked for ya?

So the thing is…. trying to be perfect in your eating won’t help you lose weight and keep it off, but thinking you can eat ice cream daily and “think positive” so that it won’t affect you won’t work either.

The goal is to release your vision of perfectionism to stop setting yourself up for failure, and at the same time accept that it’s going to take consistent healthy action to reach your weight loss goal and stay there. Overeating, using food for comfort, and making excuses won’t give you the results you seek.

With that being said, you need steps to move beyond the perfectionism so that you stop setting yourself up for more of the same. Sound good? Let’s check out the 5 steps now:

Raise Your Awareness: how many years you have been using food for purposes other than fuel for your body?Notice this is a habit, and until you have created enough new habits to replace the old habits (including old emotional ties to food), then those old habits and patterns will continue to rise up.
Be gentle with yourself and recognize that you are working to change those habits, and one slip up is just that, a slip up.

It doesn’t have to erase all of the good that you have already done in the past week or two on your weight loss plan unless you allow it to. The only way you allow it to is if you choose the old patterns again. Those old patterns of “I’ll start again on Monday….”
Grab Pen and Paper: Get objective about your eating diversion by writing it down.
Write down exactly what you ate and how much.Is it really that much in the grand scheme of things?If you get back on your healthy eating plan immediately, have you really “blown” anything?

On the other hand, if you choose to go the other way, the way that you normally go, the way where you tell yourself “I already blew it, it’s almost the weekend, might as well eat whatever I want and start again on Monday…” while you proceed to hit the nearest drive-through on the way home to start another binge, then won’t you be doing the exact opposite of what you set out to do: lose weight?

The human body is amazingly adaptable and resilient and you can choose to allow this one slip up to just be a bump in the road while you continue back down the path towards your original goal of weight loss. OR you can proceed down the path you normally go, the path that takes you further and further away from the goal weight you say you want. It’s always up to you!
Raise your awareness: how do you feel after eating the food that you know leads you away from your weight loss goals?Do you feel guilty, or heavy with shame?
Do you put yourself down for not being perfect? Do you tell yourself that you were “bad”?

How do you feel emotionally about your eating habits overall?

Start right now by loving yourself through this slip up. Sit and breathe in the fact that you did it, ok, you did it. You are still the same person you were before you ate that food, you still have all of the wonderful qualities that make up who you are, which have nothing to do with what you ate.

This slip up has not erased any of your life’s accomplishments, and it has not taken any value away from the work you have already put into changing your health. It’s all your choice what you choose to do next. You can choose to keep your power and stay objective, or you can give your power away to your vision of perfectionism and allow that to derail you from your end goal.

But if you choose the latter, what will change?
If you were already at your goal weight, what would you do differently?
Imagine if you you were already at your goal weight right now. Yes, right now, as you are reading these words.

What if you were already there, at your goal weight, maintaining a healthy diet and exercise program, and you ate the cookie.

What would you think about that? Would your whole world collapse?

Would you use it as an excuse to “start again on Monday”? Would you still think you had “blown it all” or would you instead think “well, one’s enough, I don’t want to regain any of the weight I’ve lost”.

Would you remember your accomplishment of reaching and maintaining your goal weight, or would you discount all of it as wasted work because you ate one cookie?

Just like today, your current weeks or months of accomplishment leading up to one cookie is not wasted time. The big problem is when you’re telling yourself you must be perfect and because you ate One Cookie you now label yourself as imperfect, and proceed with the excuse of “I ate one cookie I might as well eat the Whole Box”. THAT is where the problem is.

Does this make sense? Are you getting this?.

You could choose instead, to get right back on track now, and keep heading towards your goal.
Review your weight loss WHY.
Have you written pen on paper WHY you want to lose weight?
What is your weight loss WHY? Do you have a strong emotion tied to your WHY? Does it truly motivate you?

If your Weight Loss Why is very strong and you have written it down pen on paper, then you stand the best chance of beating perfectionist thoughts and staying on track.

Keep your weight loss WHY on a piece of paper or 3×5 card, easily accessible and with you at all times. By keeping your big WHY forefront in your mind, you stand the best chance of staying on track and reaching your goal. I found this technique to be the most valuable one for getting me back on track after a slip up.

Food addiction and the chemical aspect of food aside, weight loss is mainly a mind game, in fact it is 92.8% Mindset!

Yes! It’s a fact. This is why 95% of dieters fail: they are only addressing the symptoms instead of the real problems. What happens when you collect diet and exercise information but you don’t DO it? What Results do you get? Collecting information without taking action on it to get real results is a symptom of a mindset that is not geared for full success with your weight. A weight loss mindset makes it struggle-free to stay on track, to get to your goal weight, and stay there for good.

Your thoughts will always determine how successful you will be at attaining and maintaining your goal weight and level of fitness. Once you master your mind and emotions in relation to food, you will have assured your success in long term weight management. Perfectionism will no longer be a problem. What you need though, is a core, weight loss mindset because that is the true key to your success.

The Fastest Path to Successful Weight Loss

Do you want to end your food and weight struggles as quickly as possible?

Does it make sense that you’ll need to stop binge eating, stop emotional eating, and get normal with food in order to lose weight and keep it off?

Since 2009 I’ve been coaching amazing folks through my proven steps to struggle-free weight loss in 8 weeks or less. My formula heals the root of the real problem instead of only masking the issue with a band aid.

If you want to stop wondering why you’ve never been able to lose weight and keep it off, if you want to get normal with food, if you want to stop sabotaging yourself with perfectionistic thinking, then apply now for a complimentary weight loss discovery session.

It’s one-on-one and private with me, over the phone. So let’s stop the perfectionism, stop binge eating, get normal with food, and get to goal weight and stay there. Sound good? Then take your first step here and get a move on towards getting the kinds of results my previous coaching clients have gotten.

This is for you if you’d love to stop asking yourself, “Why am I so smart and successful except for this one area of my life, the area re: food, eating, and my weight… ugh!”