stop trying to be perfect

Stop trying to be perfect with your diet. It slows down your progress more than you realize.

Looking back at my 123kg days I remember thinking that being perfect was a necessity to lose weight. Back then I didn’t understand that losing weight primarily about diet either, I was trying to be perfect in both workouts AND diet.

Yep, basically an impossible task.

Most of the diets I went on back then would follow the same pattern. I’d be super motivated the first week, being 100% perfect. By week 2 it would start to get tough (cos the programs I followed back then were super restrictive) and I’d start to fall off the wagon. As soon as I’m not perfect for a day or two I’d have basically quit. I would think to myself that I ruined everything and the only way forward would be to start over or try something else.

Trying to be perfect always made me quit prematurely and whenever I quit I’d take a break before starting again. It was just this start stop start stop start stop situation repeatedly. I was going nowhere in terms of progress although it seemed like I was putting in a lot of work and effort.

The thing about the weight loss journey is you can reach your goals consistently hitting 70-80% of your diet. 100% isn’t a requirement. You’re allowed to have breaks, you’re allowed to mess up. No one day, no one meal, no one vacation can ruin your progress.

The only way to ruin progress is to quit. To completely utterly quit.

That perfectionist mindset that a lot of us have is what slows us down. It’s what keeps us starting over and over again when there’s really no need for it. All that does is slow us down from reaching our goals.

It’s like taking a test where 80% and above is a passing grade, but you keep retaking the test when you score below 100% cos you somehow believe only 100% is good though.

You don’t need to be 100% to reach your goals. 

When you need a break, take it.

When you need a vacation, take it.

When you mess up, figure out what went wrong and keep going. No biggie. We all fall down from time to time. Just cos you fell down doesn’t mean you gotta go back to the starting line. Just get up and keep going.

Stop chasing perfection, it’s an unnecessary curse.