Why you need to ditch the “all-or-nothing” mindset
Troy Rand, PhD, CSCS
Are you the type of person who goes all in when starting a new activity? Do you have perfectionist tendencies? While these are not inherently bad character traits in and of themselves, they can sabotage your health and fitness goals. Whether it’s diet, training, career, or family, having an all-or-nothing mindset can be detrimental in many ways.
What is the all-or-nothing mindset?
There is a saying that “every diet starts on Monday.” Lots of times this means that at some point during the week we went off our eating plan and therefore we have failed, now we are “off” of our diet, and we will start back again Monday. The idea that we are either on or off of a diet is a prime example of an all-or-nothing mindset.
But didn’t Friday night pizza ruin my plan of eating healthy this week?
As someone who has perfectionist tendencies myself, I completely understand this thought process. We are trying to eat a very specific way and we deviated from that, so let’s regroup and try again starting on Monday, it’s too much mental effort to try and reconcile this week’s failure so we’ll restart and be perfect next week.
I’m here to tell you to stop with this mindset. You should not be “on” or “off” of a diet. Instead, you should live a life that supports healthy eating and make nutritious food something that is the norm for you, while still allowing for Friday night pizza, or ice cream with the kids at the beach. Developing consistent, sustainable habits in nutrition and fitness should be the goal.
Learn to play the long game in health and fitness
Avoid fads and “quick-fixes” that promise amazing results in a short amount of time
Fads and quick-fix gimmicks take advantage of the all-or-nothing mindset by promising that following their plan will result in achieving the elusive “all” in a short amount of time. However, when the method is not sustainable (which 99% of them are not) then rebounding to your prior state is essentially inevitable.
In fact, a study published in 2005 showed that only 20% of participants were able to maintain weight loss for 1 year after intervention.1 This is commonly known as the “The Big Brother Effect,” named after the weight loss show where participants are put through grueling workout and diet interventions with the goal of losing as much weight as possible in a short amount of time. In 2016, Fothergill, et al. published the results of body composition and metabolic rate in 14 participants six years after completing the show.2 All of the participants except one gained weight back, on average the participants lost 60 lbs. during the 30 weeks of competition and then gained 40 lbs. of that back in the following 6 years. Metabolic rate was also suppressed significantly (~500 kcal/day) six years after the competition, even when accounting for changes in body composition and age.
Consistent and sustainable health and fitness habits are the key to sustained change
When you are too restrictive trying to be perfect or achieve a quick result, you face burning out and reverting to your old habits. Most people did not put on an extra 20 lbs. in 14 days, so why do we expect to take it off that way and be successful?
Instead, start implementing changes in your nutrition and fitness that will move you towards your goals. Evaluate your goals and determine the things that you should be doing daily to meet those goals. Start incorporating them into your life. As some of the habits/behaviors become ingrained into your life then you can start implementing new ones. Over time you start to benefit from the compounding effect of layering healthy habits on top of healthy habits.
For general health and weight maintenance that might include eating fruits and veggies every day or finding ways to increase you daily activity. For weight loss that might mean meal prepping or tracking nutrient intake. For more performance related goals that might include getting up a half hour earlier to include more training time before the family gets up or making sure you are hitting your protein target for the day.
There is nothing wrong with striving for greatness but being perfect is something that is unobtainable. Greatness can be achieved through consistency, even if it’s imperfect. So, it’s time to get rid of the all-or-nothing mindset and learn to embrace imperfect consistency.
References
- Wing, R. R. & Phelan, S. Am. J. Clin. Nutr. 82, 222S–225S (2005)
- Fothergill, E. et al. Obesity 24, 1612–1619 (2016).