So you think cutting things out will help you move forward?
While on your journey to becoming the Fittest You, a wise thing to do is work on replacing your bad habits with better ones. Obvious right?
Wrong!
So many people get it wrong because they simply try to remove a bad habit without replacing the negative habit with a better one.
Their mind-set is:
‘Remove all the sugar from my diet’
‘No more alcohol’
‘No carbs for 7 days’
Notice a common theme here?
They’re hyper focused on ‘removing’, which leads to a mind-set of emptiness and complete dissatisfaction.
If you’ve been following me so far you will know that, whether you are trying to get a strong, well-built physique or lose a few kg’s of belly fat, going extreme in a way that doesn’t compliment your lifestyle will only be sustainable to a point before you unintentionally self-sabotage yourself again.
An example is a person that suddenly decides not to eat any carbs. However, in their deprivation they end up eating peanut butter (with a spoon) like no tomorrow or start drinking more alcohol than normal. At this point they’ve completely lost sight of the fact that, the removing carbs, was ‘supposed’ to help them drop some body fat and improve their health. Instead this has backfired and made things worse.
Okay so what do I do?
Become a habit swap-er!
Understand that simply ‘cutting things out’ doesn’t work. As humans, it feels strange to completely cut something out; our very nature wants to replace a removed habit with another habit in its place.
Instead replace the bad habits with better ones.
For example:
- Instead of ordering a 3000kcal Pizza from Deliveroo, buy a frozen pizza from Waitrose that is only 700kcals.
- Swapping a cappuccino every morning for an almond flat white.
- Changing from Coke to Coke Zero.
- Get off train 1 stop earlier on way home to hit 10,000 steps instead of 6,000.
Some purists might argue: ‘but surely you should be removing all bad habits? Not just replacing them with slightly less bad ones!’
Or
‘you should only be promoting super clean foods and not artificial things such as coke zero’
This is true, the long term game might be to only be having the best habits and to rid yourself from harmful foods but this is a process and takes us time to get there. It’s far better to make small improvements that you can actually keep up, rather than trying to be perfect and constantly failing!
Keep this in mind next time you want to ‘cut something out’, instead ask yourself: ‘what’s better that I can replace this with?’
Have a great day!
Alex
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