Lose Weight – Overcome All-or-Nothing Thinking: Part 2

This is the second in our series called ‘Lose Weight – Overcome All-or-Nothing Thinking’. Once you’ve gotten past the first potential all-or-nothing thinking hurdle (discussed in ‘Lose Weight – Overcome All-or-Nothing Thinking:  Part 1′) and are happily on the road to fitness, there may still be other opportunities for all-or-nothing thinking to creep in and sabotage or derail your weight loss or fitness plans.

I have personally noticed two types of situations that are susceptible to the reappearance of that black-and-white mindset in my own thinking habits. We’ll look at what I call the “on/off trap” in this post and the “succeed/fail trap” in the next.

The on/off trap

The on/off trap seems to occur during holidays, while on vacation or work-related travel, or during any other event or period when eating healthy will be made more challenging. You may have been following a good diet & nutrition plan with healthy eating guidelines for some time and suddenly a situation comes up in which you won’t have as much flexibility.

You’ll be eating big meals with family, eating in restaurants, or otherwise just won’t have the opportunity to give your diet the attention you have been up to this point. At this point, you may drift into counterproductive thinking if you start thinking that, since you can’t be completely “on” your plan, you are “off” of it. And since you are “off” your plan, it doesn’t really matter what you do anymore.

So, you get to your party or your travel destination and proceed to eat anything and everything, figuring that you had better take advantage now because, when you’re back “on” your plan, you’ll need to be “good” again.

This is… well… a little crazy. It’s like getting a parking ticket and, since that wasn’t planned for, and your budget is now technically blown, you go out and spend as much of your money as you can manage, figuring you’ll get back “on” your budget the following month. Some of us even get a jump on this.

We decide that since we’re going to dinner later today or going to be away next week and won’t be able to follow our good eating habits as thoroughly, we might as well not worry about it at all right now either; we’ll just start again after the event or the trip is over.

Making Better Choices When Eating Out Will Help You Lose Weight

Making Better Choices When Eating Out Will Help You Lose Weight

There is no reason why you can’t enjoy the fare offered where you are going to be; but you don’t necessarily have to have as much of it as is offered to you.  You simply need to make better choices. Share half your desert with someone, use less butter or skip it altogether, pass on the gravy… just enjoy the parts of the meal that you really want to enjoy, and pass on the b-list indulgences.

While you’re away from home, save half your lunch for the mid-afternoon munchies, try to only indulge in one or items each day, have one less after-dinner drink… I’m sure you can think of a number of different ways you can partake while still not going completely overboard.

The important thing to remember is that you don’t have to give up on everything, but you also don’t have to indulge in everything. And you don’t have to be “on” or “off” of some diet or plan. Instead, think of it as moving toward a destination.

You can take a road trip and enjoy a few attractions that delay your arrival but are really worth it to you, while continuing past those that aren’t in favor of making better time. Stopping along the way to visit the wax museum doesn’t mean you have to turn around and go home.