Hey friends!
I read a little post by a dude I follow on Instagram - Zach Rocheleau, check out his Instagram account @theflexibledietinglifestyle - that got me thinking…
I LOVE when something catches my eye that explains something simply, in a way I hadn’t thought of before!
Obviously a big part of my job is motivating my clients to live their healthiest, fittest, best lives - I try to do this by encouraging good habits, as well as making a compelling case (in a way they may not have heard yet) for leaving behind attitudes and behaviors that don’t work so well for them and don’t support their goals.
Anyway, back to the idea I’m borrowing from Zach Rocheleau. I liked the way he talked about overindulging and going off the rails nutritionally (aka bingeing), which I think it’s safe to say has happened to everyone at least once…
He explained it in terms of going for a run: you can choose the distance you want to go, but just know that you’ll have the same distance to cover in order to make it back to where you started.
If you leave the house to go for a run and you jog away one mile, you just have to run one mile to make it back home. If you leave the house and run 10 miles, you have to run 10 miles to make it back. If you run 50 miles, you have to run a whopping 50 miles to get back to where you started. Yikes.
He was basically saying that a binge isn’t just about a good day or a bad day. The thinking that you’ve already “ruined your nutrition for the day” by having a donut, so you go on to eat 11 more donuts, followed by pizza, followed by an ice cream sundae, is flawed - the magnitude of the deviation from your healthy plan DOES matter.
Instead of thinking of every day as a chance to make your health and fitness better, think of every moment as being an opportunity to make progress and/or get back on track.
So you ate a donut… Who cares? Instead of feeling discouraged, throwing your whole day away, and getting even farther away from your goal by piling on more crap, take a moment, breathe, and relax.
Even if you indulge in something you’re not happy about, let it end there. Think about how much you enjoyed it, take the next possible opportunity to get back on track, and move the hell on.
A great solution that really helps with this? Give counting your macros a try. This is the whole concept that Zach Rocheleau has built his life around - it’s based completely on finding a way to fit your favorite foods into your diet so that there’s never any guilt surrounding eating things that you love.
Yes, there are sacrifices and adjustments to be made surrounding your choices but no food is rendered off-limits, which really helps to eliminate the restrict-binge cycle that plagues so many people and derails so many well-intentioned nutrition approaches. You can read a little bit more about it in my post HERE :)
Plus, counting macros is super trendy right now - all the cool kids are doing it! Just kidding, but not really… It’s a concept that’s definitely enjoying some time in the limelight, and for good reason!
Interested and/or need some help? Let me know!
If not, no problem - I still think this whole idea of binge avoidance is a valuable lesson to keep in mind. Would you rather run one mile or ten miles back to where you began? You’re welcome to guess my preference (hint: it’s definitely NOT ten)…
Let’s learn to live that healthy, balanced life we all want - together!
Please feel free to comment, upvote, or resteem if you’d like! :)
