The All-or-Nothing Mindset

We've all been there

Kyle starts a new diet and tells himself, “this is it, this time I’m going to stick to it once and for all.” A few weeks into following the diet Kyle starts to experience some cravings or a desire to be lazy with his nutrition but he’s still pretty motivated so he tells himself, “suck it up, this isn’t supposed to be easy” and he pushes on. Three weeks later at a birthday party, he has two beers and decides to treat the dessert table like an all-you-can-eat buffet and says, “screw it, I already messed up this weekend. May as well go all the way.” Next thing you know, it’s been weeks since Kyle’s last healthy meal and he’s right back where he started.

Has anyone ever experienced this? The truth is, most of us have at one point or another. This is the all-or-nothing mindset of dieting.

The all-or-nothing mindset of dieting says that you’re either in or out. You are on the diet or you are off of it. This mindset says that perfection is the toll that you must pay to use nutrition as a tool to reach your health goals and improve your overall health and wellness.

But this isn’t true.

I have written about this before but dieting does not require perfection. To be successful with nutrition you need to focus on eating healthy the majority of the time. But not all of the time.

This is important to understand.

Let’s be real. Humans have gotten really damn good at making food taste great. Stoic philosophers have said that “the mouth is an organ of function not an organ of pleasure” but these gentlemen never experienced a Chicago deep-dish pizza (sorry you New Yorkers).

We have to go into our health journies realizing that there are going to be obstacles. Both planned (a vacation) and unplanned (that coworker just had to bring the doughnuts). Let me be clear, we should do our best to train ourselves to be able to avoid or defeat these obstacles as often as we can. And to prefer what is beneficial But we should know that they will defeat us sometimes and when this happens, the answer is not to retreat to our old habits. The answer is to get back on track with a positive mindset which does not include guilt or embarrassment.

Diet is not all or nothing. The ancient Greeks viewed diet as everything we consume and expose ourselves to. The goal should be to have as much of that consumption result in nourishment instead of contributing to chronic disease. When it doesn’t, we just strive to do better next time.

Thanks for reading,

Chris Irvin

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