Mindset Shift for Overcoming “Falling Off the Wagon” With Eating Habits

Today’s mindset shift expands on what I talked about in last week’s episode, Start Strong: Strategies to Jumpstart Your Health and Weight Goals. But this is also incredibly valuable even if you didn’t listen to that episode. But I highly recommend you go back and listen to that one after this.

Listen to the episode here (or read it below):

Okay, so have you ever started trying to eat healthier or cut out sweets and come Thursday, work was just so stressful, you ate a couple cookies when you told yourself you weren’t going to, or you ordered fast food on the way home?

This is often known as “falling off the wagon,” right? This happens all the time, especially with dieting or when someone is just expected to eat differently without using an effective strategy.

So a common thought that you might have when you “fall off the wagon” with your eating intentions might be something like, “I blew it. I might as well start over on Monday.”

This is especially common with perfectionists, because the thought is that since you weren’t perfect, you need to start over again to strive for that perfection. And until you start over again, whether it be Monday or another time, it’s kind of like a free-for-all.

Sound familiar? You could even apply this to starting over at the beginning of the month. But Monday is common one.

So when you’re thinking the thought (or a similar one): “I blew it. I might as well start over on Monday,” how do you think that would make you feel? As in what emotion?

The emotion could be discouragement or very commonly a feeling of failure.

Let’s just go with a feeling of failure. When you feel you’ve failed, what do you typically do? Go right back to doing what you had been originally doing. Maybe even worse, because now you just feel awful, right?

That could look like eating all the processed snacks at night, binge eating, not staying hydrated, getting takeout instead of cooking simple healthy meals, skipping your daily walks.

Which would result in what? Not making any progress toward your goals or perhaps getting even further away from your goals.

But what if instead, when you “mess up,” you had a different thought, a mindset shift? That could look like, “I didn’t stick to my plan, but how can I get back on track TODAY?”

What emotion do you think this mindset shift would create? Maybe something like acceptance, curiosity or even motivation.

Let’s go with curiosity. If you’re curious about how you can get back on track today, what do you think you’d do next or maybe not do next?

You likely would think ahead about your next meal and how you can ensure that you can feel good about that one. Ensure how you can then stay on track the rest of the day.

You might even be able to get curious about WHY you slipped up and even brainstorm a solution for next time. This is what I do with my clients, so that they’re always learning, fine-tuning and moving forward.

And this curiosity likely wouldn’t lead you to continuing to make poor choices the rest of the day or to binge eat.

And so if you’re doing all these more productive actions and not continuing to “mess up” or binge, what do you think the result would be? Probably that you’d stay on track and continue making progress. You wouldn’t be setting your goals back or delaying your dreams.

So do you see how that mindset shift really creates such powerful change? It changes how you feel, your behaviors and your end results.

I just want to end with this. If you’re feeling like you’re struggling with the actions, it’s in part at least due to your thoughts, your mindset. If you’re struggling with emotions, like staying motivated, becoming discouraged, your thoughts are also playing a big part in that too.

Continue tuning in every Monday for the Monday Mindset Shift mini episodes and also every Thursday for the regular episodes, covering everything from overeating to nighttime snacking, emotional eating, mindful and intuitive eating, weight loss mindset, and so much more, tailored to career women and women in healthcare.

Thanks for listening, take care, and I’ll talk with you soon.