RELATABLE STORY AHEAD 🙈!
Let’s say you decide it’s time to finally (re)start a healthy lifestyle, so you pick a date to begin. You’ve got it all planned out: You’ll work out, eat better, drink more water, go to bed early, and do all the things.
And before the big day gets here, you make sure you eat ALL your favorite foods …
Because you’re not going to be “allowed” to eat them once your new routine kicks in. And you DO eat them. Because… yum.
#facepalm
There’s a name for that: Last Supper-ing.
And there are TWO BIG REASONS it gets in the way of your results!
FIRST, just on a practical basis, loading up on all your favorites can lead to weight gain, pushing you even farther from your goals — before you even get a chance to work on them.
But SECOND (and even more importantly), this kind of thinking helps cement an all-or-nothing attitude towards food.
That’s when you label some foods as “good” and others as “bad” — and it can make it almost impossible to stick with your routine because it’s not sustainable in the long term.
Example: what if your favorite food is pizza, and suddenly you 1) can’t have pizza and 2) don’t want to think about pizza?
The first thing you do is immediately start thinking about PIZZA, am I right?
And then you start craving it.
A better approach: finding a solution that works for you long-term and that actually INCLUDES your favorite foods (in moderation), so nothing is ever completely “off-limits.”