In order to plan for success in the fall, dieters need to focus on preparing for changes than happen after summer. Fall is usually a time when school is back in session and colder weather emerges. Holiday seasons also begin to race into high gear. There are two reasons why you tend to fail in the fall: You don’t have a plan, or your plan is not realistic. Regardless, planning is even more vital in the colder months than it ever was during the warmer ones.
Seasonal habits need changing
During the summer months, many dieters believe that it is easier to plan to stick to your eating habits and workout routines. Hot weather can drive gym goers inside for air conditioning, and swimming and water sports become more prominent. We also tend to wear less clothing in the heat, which motivates us to look and feel our best. Fresh produce is in abundance, making it very easy to find healthy options to eat. So with the heat, we tend to eat better and are more physically active than any other season.
Somehow, the minute the colder weather starts to set in, our habits also seem to freeze and a stale mate begins with our routines. Generally, routines should be easy to keep. But many underestimate just how busy they tend to be come September and there is no consideration for the mental space that takes up.
If you fail to plan, you plan to fail
It is important that you have plans in place for when the weather changes. School begins and kids tend to take up all our time, with extra curriculars and events. If there is no plan in place for how to deal with the change in schedule, then failure is inevitable. We know these things come every fall, so plan ahead of time for how you will fit in your workouts and gym time. Colder weather tends to make us want to hide indoors and not go out. So a plan needs to be in place for how you will handle poor weather conditions. This might mean having some gym equipment at home for the days you don’t want to travel. If you are a home gym user, then proper scheduling of your time needs to be considered.
Fall often brings a change in food options and eating habits. Fall and Winter are “Sweets and Junk” season. Football and Hockey season brings out all of the tailgate type foods, that are high fat and high sugar. This makes way for holiday season, which – for many – is a general “free for all” in eating options. There are less fresh produce options in the colder weather, which can make it difficult to have healthier options.
This is not something to beat yourself up over, attempt to “white knuckle” through, or throw your hands up in defeat (until the New Year) – instead, think ahead and arm yourself with a plan!
Planning ahead for the colder weather with a decent food plan can make or break your fall season. Utilize tools like a crock pot or instant pot to help make meals ahead of time. Plan out a few meals in advance and freeze them so you always have a good food option ready to go rather than grabbing take out. It is also important to allow yourself the ability and freedom to still eat some of the less healthier options. Framing your goals during the colder months can help keep you on track, and upbeat about your progress.
Know what your natural patterns are in the fall season. Know that you will tend to want to move less and eat more. Have a general plan in place for how you will combat the colder weather. Have both a workout plan and an eating plan in place. These things will allow you to continue to make progress in the colder months, and your next spring and summer to go as planned.
Progress pictures are usually the gold standard when it comes to seeing fat loss results. However if you are taking crappy pictures, this can skew your real results and make you believe you aren’t progressing at all. Somehow progress pics have been relegated to what we see on Instagram. Obvious results in your before and after shots and no mention of what happened during the “in between” time of your photos. Over time, this has caused people to have a warped sense of what true progress pictures should look like. Let’s take a look at the reasons why we may not be seeing any progress in our photos.
Why your photos suck and what you can do about them
Weird times of day/month. Whenever you take pics, pick a consistent time where they will be taken in. You’re always gonna look leaner in the morning than you do in the evening with a belly full of food, and body full of sodium. Comparing photos taken at different times might have just enough bloat happening to hide the tiniest bit of change.
Camera positioning. A higher placed camera angle will always make you look leaner than a lower one. Don’t ever compare the two. Pick your position: put the camera there every time and walk to the exact same spot every time. Taking close up pics will always make you look bigger than further away, and headless body shots zoomed in will give you grounds for crying!
Focusing only on “problem areas.” When you do this you’re not paying attention to whether you have progress elsewhere. Problem areas are called that for a reason. Expect them to be the LAST to go and stop studying them and allowing what appears to be lack of progress dictate that ALL progress is nonexistent.
Not understanding juxtaposition. If one area is shrinking faster than another, the slower shrinking area will look BIGGER. If all areas are shrinking at the same rate, it typically means pics appear EXACTLY the same.
You don’t have “the eye” (or you’re annoyed by it). Sometimes the oddest things will indicate progress. Maybe your bra strap isn’t digging in anymore. Maybe your swimsuit bottoms cover more bottom than before, or maybe a tattoo has “moved” a little on your body.
If you’re gonna look, look for PROGRESS – don’t just snap a pic to “prove” your negative thoughts of “nothing is changing!” Take pics to prove yourself WRONG, and use ANY progress as a sign that you’re still on the right track to LONG LASTING progress. (The longer it takes, the longer it’ll last, because the habits required to maintain it will be rock solid)
From the beginning of time, diet companies have made us feel like our willpower is what will allow us to succeed. If we fail, it is not the diets fault – it’s our willpower. If we just concentrate harder, stop cheating and don’t allow for derailments, then we can easily stick to the plan and “suck it up” for the long haul.
Wrong!
It’s NOT you – It’s your diet.
Willpower is an exhaustible resource. You only have so much of it and when it’s gone, it won’t matter what you had planned to do; it’s gone. Diets unfortunately, take up a vast amount of willpower. So when you diet, your willpower is drained by trying to stay on track. But we don’t get to pick and choose where our self control comes from.
We spend our whole day just trying to keep our willpower in check. Our boss gets on our back, and we keep a tight lipped, respectful reply. Traffic jam on the way home, the frustration keeps rising. We get home and try not to yell at our children for no reason. It all requires willpower, and it’s just a matter of time before we drop a ball somewhere.
Eventually it fail. Using all your willpower up in other areas will mean it’s bound to spin out of control in another. Mainly, your diet.
Dieting in general causes an insane amount of stress on us. Diets tend to be very restricting, eliminating too many food choices, or calorie levels. And dieting during high stress situations is never a wise choice. (let alone a restrictive diet at any time!) When it comes to sticking to any kind of diet, picking one with a dozen different changes to your food intake, will surely cause a catastrophic failure to your willpower. So choose a diet that will change only ONE thing. This will allow you to concentrate on that one change until it becomes a habit.
When something becomes a habit, it will not require your willpower to keep going. So pick the diet that you can incorporate into your life for the long term. Think not weeks or even months, think for life. If you cannot sustain your diet plan for the rest of your days and be happy living your life, then your willpower will run out.
Today’s post is from Team Member, Tereza Toledo. Tereza recently went on a family vacation to Jamaica, and shares how she she crushed her Diet Mentality and truly relaxed during her Chill Phase.
Tereza’s Chill Vacation
I just got back from a true chill phase. 7 days on an all-inclusive resort in Jamaica with husband and kids.
In the past, the diet mentality would have made everything different; it would have ruined it all. I would have spent weeks trying to eat barely anything, cardio-ing myself to exhaustion, just so I could look a certain way for the vacation. Then I would be miserable. I would not enjoy the beautiful scenery, the amazing food and the company of my family, all because I’d be full of insecurities over my body and all the other stuff the we allow to come in when we let the diet mentality take over our lives.
But nope, none of that happened. I am a #crusher and I’m proud to brag! I was on a very mild cut for six weeks, not because of the upcoming vacation (last minute decision) but just because that was the phase I chose to be in after a long maintenance turned bulk. I kept lifting, watching my macros and eating what I should until the day before we left. No pressure to squeeze myself in old clothes that wouldn’t make me feel or look good.
During my chill phase
I ate the food, I slept, I put my feet up and enjoyed. You don’t get someone cooking your meals and tidying up your room too often! I don’t usually drink, but who can pass on pina coladas being served at a pool bar (literally inside the pool – genius idea) with my favorite people in the world (the kids got virgin drinks, of course). It would have been rude to the bartenders! I didn’t worry about how much sugar/carbs/whatever was in there, I just sipped and chilled!
I even had dinner and breakfast twice a few days. How could I say no to my husband and kids or not joining them or to nag at them for eating. I never get to enjoy Jamaican food! I wasn’t going to not eat! It wasn’t a crazy feeding frenzy as it may sound, but it was a decision that I made. I allowed myself to have my time off and enjoy it, bit by bit.
I didn’t feel gross about myself; I did not compare myself to other people; I did not worry about how I would look in my bathing suit. I didn’t spend a second thinking that I was ruining my previous phase or that I’d have to undo the damage when I got home. I didn’t eat salad in the last day or on the way home, I didn’t even try to use the amazing gym they had there! I just chilled.
Today, I have no regrets. I’m not worried if my pants feel a little snug or if I don’t look as cut as I did before the vacation. I am re-energized and ready to move on with my next phase. I reconnected with myself and with my family, we had a great time and made wonderful memories. We laughed and had fun. And that’s what EM2WL and #crushingthedietmentality is all about.
How are you Crushing the Diet Mentality? Post your NSV’s in the CTDM online community, we’d love to share it with the fam!
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When it comes to working out, most of us have a reason for doing it. Usually what we choose to do is based on what our goals are, and where we are in our personal journey. There is a huge difference in workouts between someone who is just starting out and someone who is a competitive lifter. Let’s take a walk through our phases of lifting, or what “grade” of school each belongs to, ’cause just like school, the higher the grade, the more challenging work needs to be done!
Newbie Gains (Grades 1-4)
When you first start working out, chances are you are coming from your couch and you just want to “move more.” You could literally do anything in terms of exercise and it will yield results. Much like elementary school. Your first few years of learning is where the basics come from. This is where you are learning to just move. Weights may or may not be on your radar yet, but walking more, running, exercise videos, gym classes, etc. Anything you decide to do, will give you results for your work. This is referred to as “newbie gains.” You are only ever a newbie once, so this is a time to take advantage of this first year or so just doing anything and everything. Eventually, all good things come to an end and after a year or so, these gains will be hard to come by.
Growth (Grades 5-9)
The results from your first year or so of lifting have stopped occurring. Now its time to apply the knowledge you have and start challenging the body. Your workouts should be strategic choices, based on your goals. In the newbie phase you could do anything and get results, but in a growth phase you have to start incorporating things you may not like in order to get results. What was once tough before, now becomes easy to do. Maybe you could only do 2 pushups and now you can do 15. You need to think of ways to add resistance to that move in order to get results. When you began, walking a mile might be enough of a challenge, but as we grow, that mile turns into five, then 10. This is where changing steady state activities to something like HIIT comes into play.
Challenge (Grades 10-12+)
Lastly, challenging the body to do things it hasn’t done will be the final phase, and the one where all seasoned vets end up living in. This is where we have to constantly challenge ourselves to move differently, lift heavier, build endurance, strength, flexibility, and evolve through each new workout. Even with an activity like lifting, the challenge will be to lift heavier, or increase time under tension. When a 200lb squat becomes too easy, the challenge will be to increase the weight. This is also where your goals come into play more. If your goal is fat loss, then your workouts will be tailored differently than if your goal was strength based. Over time, your resistance will change, so you need to adapt the numbers to constantly challenge your body.
It is important to continue do things you like doing. Those type of activities help aid in stress relief and relaxation more than getting results. But if you aren’t willing to challenge yourself, then you will constantly spin your wheels over and over again.
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Why your photos suck and what you can do about them
Lastly, challenging the body to do things it hasn’t done will be the final phase, and the one where all seasoned vets end up living in. This is where we have to constantly challenge ourselves to move differently, lift heavier, build endurance, strength, flexibility, and evolve through each new workout. Even with an activity like lifting, the challenge will be to lift heavier, or increase time under tension. When a 200lb squat becomes too easy, the challenge will be to increase the weight. This is also where your goals come into play more. If your goal is fat loss, then your workouts will be tailored differently than if your goal was strength based. Over time, your resistance will change, so you need to adapt the numbers to constantly challenge your body.
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