it's ok to mess up

Back in my 123kg days my idea of messing up was that it was the end of the world. If I went on a diet and I messed up even one little bit, I would quit the diet and feel like the ultimate failure.

It was so severe to a point where I remember one time I was following some recipe I found from a magazine and the recipe called for green apples but I couldn’t find any green apples in my local supermarkets and I started to super stress out. In the end I used red apples but to me back then I understood nothing about diet and believed that if I didn’t follow the plan exactly then it wasn’t going to work.

I was right, it didn’t work.

In hindsight 100% nothing to do with the color of apple I was using in the recipe, it’s just I followed the recipe for a mere 3-4 days expecting massive results but didn’t see any so I quit.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my weight loss journey it’s that it’s ok to mess up. It’s something I only really only understood after having gone through the journey and hit my goals. Throughout my journey I still had a part of me that was very scared to mess up, but over time I realized it’s actually totally fine.

Messing up isn’t the main concern.

The main concern is what you do after you mess up.

Overate the day before?

Totally fine.

Get back on track the next day and keep going. No need to punish yourself, no need to make any adjustments, just move on. In all areas of life we’re bound to mess up here and there. Life’s not perfect, we’re not perfect, so it’s kinda weird to expect a diet to be perfect.

Of course when you start messing up quite frequently that’s when you gotta take action. The action of course is not to quit, but to go back and review your routine and diet as a whole. Messing up a lot frequently means the plan isn’t working, and when the plan’s not working it’s time to make adjustments.

Again, not quitting. Making adjustments.

I know it could feel scary.

Say you’ve been consistent for 3 weeks, had one off day and you weigh yourself the next day and it seems like you gained everything you lost back. That’s scary, except that’s not the real picture. In most cases when you overeat or go off plan after being consistent for a while there’s bound to be a weight spike.

Most of it is water weight.

It’s not gonna take you another 3 weeks to see the scale weight come back down, a good 2-3 days back on track will have your scale numbers back to where it was before the off day.

There is no limit to how many times you’re allowed to mess up. You can mess up infinite times. What’s important is what you do after you mess up.

The only thing that guarantees failure is if you quit.

As long as you don’t quit, reaching your goals is truly just a matter of time. Yes, it’s a long time of ups and down. But everyday you don’t quit, that gap between you and your goals are getting shorter and shorter.

Hope you’ve been well!