Hey ,

Yesterday I was on the phone with one of my Best of You coaching clients. During our calls, we address everything from business to relationships to physique struggles. It's a blast because every person is uniquely different.

This one gal mentioned that she's caught up in all-or-nothing eating trap where she's either completely ON her eating game, 100% compliant with a super-strict regimen, OR come Thursday, she finds herself saying, "Screw it! I messed up! I might as well just have anything I want and start again on Monday!"

Can you relate to this?

(I can) *raises hand* 

Oh yeah. This is what I call the "Weekly Deprive-then-Binge Cycle." And boy, is it common! Monday thru Thursday clean as a whistle, and Friday thru Sunday, forget it. 

In psychology, it's called the "What-the-Hell Effect," when we use one single off-plan "mess up" as an excuse to just blow the whole thing. This is the definition of black-and-white dieting, where if we're not perfect, we might as well give up. 

And this is a trap.

It's a mindset we learn as a result of following short-term plans or the latest diet book or a competition prep program or any other program where there's a definitive start date and a definitive end.

And you know this as well as I do: people who get and stay lean don't have a date at which they'll be done with their process.

The leanest people are the most consistent. And when I say consistent, I don't mean consistently perfect.

In fact, their eating is never perfect. Why? Because perfect is an illusion. It's unsustainable. It's a ridiculous story we tell ourselves to keep us in a prison of never getting better. It's the most perfect setup to perpetuate the idea that we should be better, or we're not reaching our potential, or look at all these other women who can do it and why can't I??? *hangs head*

I get it. Been there.

And I'll never forget something my ever-brilliant sister-in-law Dr. Jillian Teta said to me about a year ago. She told me lovingly and with understanding that, "At some point you have to just get over yourself."

Wow! How true! The idea that we can and should be perfect with out eating is played out. Byyyyyyyeeeee. No thanks. Believing that story does not serve me. And it doesn't help me get better.

So. If perfect is not available, how can we get results? Certainly moderation can't get results?

Or can it?

If you've been reading JillFit for long, you know that I promote a 90% clean 100% of the time approach. I don't care if it's Monday or Saturday, you eat the same.

And so the idea that Monday "needs" to be super-strict and you need to "make up for" all the crap you ate over the weekend, again, is old school. And it's not how real, sustainable physique change is made. 

If you want to make sustainable progress, I want you to begin thinking about your eating not in terms of "on" or "off" but in terms of degrees of deprivation. When I stay on the pulse of how DEPRIVED I feel, I know that the more deprived I feel, the more likely I am to eventually overindulge. There's an equal compensatory overindulgence directly related to every period of deprivation.

I like to think about the relationship between deprive and binge like a tennis match. 

One person hits, the other returns the hit. When you're volleying, there's equality in the strength of the returns. But after a few minutes, one person hits a little harder. In terms of eating, this would be the deprive piece. We start cutting cals or cutting carbs or doing a detox, whatever. And so, the other player hits back even harder. For us, this represents the resultant binge. And then as a result of the binge, we now need to "do penance" to make up for it, so come Monday, we vow to "just be more even more strict," or be more disciplined, or stop being so weak, or up our cardio, or catch a few extra workouts.

And can you see now that every return hit on the tennis court is getting harder and harder, with each player compensating. Deprive pushes hard, and indulge pushes back even harder until someone breaks.

And so, if this is the case. The answer is NOT to just be more strict. Why? Because greater rigidity brings about an even greater indulgence. Which perpetuates the on-or-off mindset around food. The very pattern we are trying to break.

So what's the solution if not to be more strict?

Be LESS strict.

Yes!

And I know we don't like that. Because ... aaaaaah! If we don't have our rules, how can we get results?!!  This is a mindset shift. I get that.

But my recommendation is to find ways to build RELIEF into your eating day. Every day. I don't care if it's Monday and you "really don't need it." Preempt your cravings with preemptive cheats (check out my top 5 preemptive cheats here). 

So back to my coaching client ...

She told me she has a huge sweet tooth. My advice to her: I want you to go buy dark chocolate or sugar-free chocolate, and I want you to eat some every day. Monday, Tuesday, Saturday, whenever. Use it during your typical trigger times. 

This is how you take the edge off BEFORE you get to the point of complete deprivation, because at that point, it's already too late. I get that this seems counterintuitive. But the truth is ...

It's better to be 90% tight 7 days a week than 100% tight Monday thru Thursday and 0% Friday thru Sunday.

Not only does the latter not get results, but it perpetuates the "good little dieter" and "bad little dieter" scenarios. It keeps in the cycle of deprive-then-binge, black-and-white, on-and-off.

And all-or-nothing always ends up being ... nothing.

So, ask yourself, are you being too strict? Guaranteeing that you will eventually fall over the cliff into binging? Or do you have a bite or two of something to help ease your deprivation every single day? Not enough to put fat on, but enough to take the edge off so that by the time you reach Friday, it might as well be Monday.

Same eating strategy, errr day.

Let me know how you're doing! I'd love to see your post on the JillFit Facebook page! Hit me up!

Ox,
Jill

P.S. I'm suuuuuper excited to share something amazing with you next week! Click here for a sneak peek!