5 Steps For Turning Any “Bad Diet Day” Around
TURN THAT “BAD DIET DAY” AROUND
In this post, I’m going to show 5 simple steps that can help you to turn any “bad diet day” around. This is actually an extract from my book (page 128), but I really wanted to share this with you on the blog today.
There’s no doubt about it, there are days when “dieting” is hard. Things don’t always go as planned, and one “bad day” of dieting, can completely throw you off the tracks!
This sucks when you have been working hard towards your goals, and have been making progress – and you feel as if in “just one day” everything started to spiral out of control.
Many factors can lead to a “bad diet day” – holidays, parties, work or school functions, work or school stress, boredom, or even just a particularly “hungry day”.
However bad a “bad diet day” has been, there are some simple steps that you can take to turn things around – you never have to stay where you are presently, you can move forward stronger than before.
Remember that deciding to move forward and end a “bad day” on a good note, is a choice that you can make – it’s not always easy, but the way you end any day (even a “bad” one) is your choice.
CHANGE YOUR TUNE
Change your tune, get that spring back in your step and move forward
Instead of remembering a “bad diet day” as the day that you cheated, almost cheated and almost gave up – rather remember it as the day that you changed your mindset to a more positive and powerful one.
Remember this as the day that you changed your life for the better and, above all, remember this as the day that you started to love yourself even more than you already did!
And when all else fails – take a nice bath or shower, wash your face, drink lots of water, make a nice cup of herbal tea, lay out an outfit for tomorrow, get some decent sleep (just take care of yourself)… and call it a day. Tomorrow can be better!
5 STEPS TO TURN THAT “BAD DIET DAY” AROUND
1. Give thanks
Be grateful for anything and everything good in your life! If you can’t think of anything to be grateful for, then start with this: be thankful that you are alive, be thankful that you are breathing, be thankful that the sun rises every morning and be thankful that you have made the choice to work towards achieving your most beautiful body! Each of these alone are amazing. Now start to list anything and everything else that you are grateful for (examples: friends, family, having water to drink, having food to eat), really feel the emotions of being thankful for these things.
2. Get some perspective
I know that working towards a body goal can sometimes feel really hard (like the hardest and worst thing in the world), but it’s important to keep in mind that we are so lucky to be working towards goals like these! I’m from South Africa and a lot of people in my country do not even have food to eat, let alone deliciously healthy food. Creating a healthier lifestyle is not even an option for these people because they are literally starving to death. We have a lot to be thankful for – our lives are really not so bad. In fact we are really blessed to be in a position to be able to make positive changes to our bodies. So when we feel “down” about our diets or about exercising, we must just remember to get a fresh perspective on the situation and remember how lucky we truly are. It is also important to remember that we are not victims of our weight or our bodies. We get to create our bodies and our future bodies with what we eat and how we treat our bodies today. You started a new diet or have followed a new way of eating, because you decided that you wanted to change the way that you felt about yourself and achieve new body goals – no one forced you to! Enjoy loving your body and learn to enjoy the process of changing the way that your body looks and feels.
3. Remember your motivation
Always keep your motivation in mind. What is your motivation? Why did you create your body goals? Why do you want to lose weight or tone up? Write these things down. Write down why you want to be healthier or fitter, why you want to lose weight and why you want to feel amazing in your body.
I know that when I want to “cheat” on my diet or skip a workout session, I just need to pause for a minute and remember my motivation. When I do this I realize that I don’t really want to cheat on my diet or skip my workout session because I want to have a healthy, beautiful body that I feel amazing living in – I want this way more than any treat! Never sacrifice what you want most (your goal) for what you want in a fleeting moment (chocolate cake?).
4. Make a positive statement
A declaration or an affirmation is a positive statement that we can say to help us clearly envision a goal. Whatever we think, feel and say is what we end up believing and it therefore becomes our reality. If I am trying to lose weight but I am always thinking or saying “This is so hard. I hate eating healthy food and I hate exercising. I’m not losing any weight. This is stupid”, then I will probably not lose any weight or reach my body goals because I am creating that reality in my life with my thoughts, feelings and words. But if I am trying to lose weight and I think and say “I love how great my body feels when I eat healthy food and exercise. I am so grateful that I get the opportunity to make these positive changes in my life”, then I am more likely to enjoy my journey of achieving my body goals. Choose a positive declaration to say any time you are about to make a negative statement about your efforts of working towards your body goals, or when you feel like you might sabotage your efforts (by cheating on your eating plan or skipping an exercise session). For example, you could say “Eating healthy food and exercising makes my body feel so good and I love how they are helping me to achieve my body goals.” I like to say a positive declaration when I am feeling unmotivated or when I say something stupid like “I hate dieting, it’s so hard”.
5. Love yourself
Yes I know, this is much easier said than done. But we have to learn to love ourselves and our bodies no matter what! No matter how you feel, no matter what you have done in the past and no matter what you have experienced – you deserve to love yourself. It doesn’t matter what anyone else thinks or says, you are beautiful inside and out. You deserve to eat healthy nourishing food, you deserve to lose weight and feel amazing, you deserve to love yourself and your body! You deserve to achieve your health, fitness and body goals. We deserve our own love no matter how many times we’ve tried to lose weight and have failed, no matter how many times we’ve “cheated” on our diets and no matter how much we’ve disliked ourselves and our bodies in the past. But let’s put a stop to self loathing today and choose to love ourselves for all of our flaws as well as all of the things that make us amazing!
TAKE NOTE + TAKE CARE
Instead of remembering a “bad diet day” as the day that you cheated, almost cheated and almost gave up – rather remember it as the day that you changed your mindset to a more positive and powerful one.
Remember this as the day that you changed your life for the better and, above all, remember this as the day that you started to love yourself even more than you already did!
When you feel like quitting, think about why you started. Be proud, be strong and be your awesome self! Don’t slow down and don’t stop going, instead rise up and smash the boundaries what you previously thought was possible! This is just the beginning of an amazing journey!
And when all else fails – take a nice bath or shower, wash your face, drink lots of water, make a nice cup of herbal tea, lay out an outfit for tomorrow, get some decent sleep (just take care of yourself)… and call it a day. Tomorrow can be better!
Liezl Jayne XO
Ps. If Britney Spears could get through 2007, then you surely can get through today.
Photos by Ross Charnock for liezljayne.com
