Toe In, Toe Out

I was recently asked if I ever drifted back into old habits when losing weight or, if I had ever had ‘off weeks’ in that process? In fact, here’s the exact question:

“You and I both started with "the end in mind" of trusting the process over a prescribed time and together we've logged a year so far. Crazy. My question is: during your final process when you committed to seeing it thru did you have days or a week like this where you had to "get back on"? or did you not have any set backs…?”

Here's my answer:

I didn’t have any setbacks in the sense that I deviated from the plan or where I strung together a series of ‘great weeks’ and then had a week or two of not great week. When I committed, I committed. All in.

However, that’s 1,000% not to say that I didn’t have weeks where I had weeks that were a mental grind and WANTED to waive the white flag. I had and STILL have many of those (more so on the training front now than the nutrition).

Truth be told: I’m a simple guy who needs very frank and straightforward answers that I can rely on when my emotions flare up. The more I automate it, the better.

…and that’s what birthed “it doesn’t matter” and “discipline over motivation”. After being confronted with ‘not feeling it’ so many times and telling myself it didn’t matter and engaging anyway, it was like my brain just stopped trying to negotiate with me. It was a non-negotiable thing because I knew if I negotiated with myself, it was one step back to who I used to be and I did not want that.

It wasn’t that I feared eating above my target or the missed ‘gains’ from not working out. Instead, it was a reversion back to old habits. Not having control of myself. THAT bothered me more than anything.

It wasn’t always pretty. I’ve done MANY workouts that were flat and sucked, but it wasn’t about improving performance. It was about establishing (and maintaining) habit.

You can get by with mediocre consistency in maintenance, but it’ll be really tough to hit a specific goal with them. With that said, I would argue the reason for engaging isn’t reaching the end goal. It’s development of a habit. Building a new rut that doesn’t allow your brain to even negotiate with you.

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