When a baby is learning how to crawl, its parents dont say, Thats not good enough; you have to walk! And when that baby does start to walkafter countless failed attempts without any loss of enthusiasmthe parents dont say, Not good enough! You must run!
When you want to get fitter, you dont run a marathon straight away. That would be insane and you could seriously injure or exhaust yourself. Instead, youd start by running for 10 minutes. Thats enough.
Its the same if you want to start lifting weights. You dont put the heaviest weight on the bar and try to lift it; you should load the lightest amount that seems a minor challenge, see how you do, and adjust from there.
Ditto forwhen someone starts playing basketball. If they tried shooting three-pointers right away, theyd probably miss every single one because theyd have no idea what they were doing; their only strategy would be to throw and hope. Then theyd feel discouraged, figure that basketball just wasnt for them, and probably give up (especially if they have a fixed mindset.)
How would this approach ever lead to success? How would this not lead to failure?
And yetthis is exactly how weve been told to diet.
By going from one extreme to the other.
One day, youre eating anything you want and completely over-indulging. Pizza, cakes, sweets, chips, caramel macchiatos. The next day, youre expected to not only cut all those things out, but to starve yourself. Because, supposedly, thats how you lose weight.
For some reason, most of us have accepted this reality. Weve accepted that this is the way to diet and lose weighteven though when we see the metaphors above we immediately know they lack any kind of strategy, are as close to impossible as you can get, and will inevitably lead to failure.
A baby isnt born with the skills to crawl or walk. A baby has to learn them. A baby has to invest in its many, many, many inevitable failures in order to learn how to even crawl, let alone walk. A baby cannot be forced to crawl or walk. It just doesnt work that way.
If you want to get fitter and increase your endurance, you dont start by running a marathon. You run for 10 minutes for a few days a week. 15 the next week. Then 20. Then half an hour. In other words, you practice getting fitter. And, eventually, a marathon would be a realistic goal. A challenge, yes, but a realistic one.
When you start lifting weights, you start small. You start with something thats a little bit uncomfortable but still doable. You dont walk into the gym, try to lift the heaviest weight, fail miserably, and then get angry and sad and start crying because you cant do it; it would be outrageous to expect that you could. Eventually, though, after practicing for long enough, you will easily lift weights you couldnt even pick up before. Its inevitable.
Same with basketball. Youd start working on your shot by going as close to the basket as possible and getting your technique rightyour footwork, where you hold the ball, how you release it. Whether you scored or not at the beginning wouldnt even matterit would only be about developing your technique, and ingraining it through practicing it over and over.
And yetAnd yetAnd yet!
I mean, you can see it, right? This is exactly what dieting is. You expect, with no practice whatsoever, to change years (and probably decades) of eating habits literally overnight, and then keep this up forever.
And you wonder why dieting doesnt work? Why you hate going on a diet?
Going on a diet is exactly why going on a diet fails.
Well, thank goodness theres another way.
A way that involves not starving and restricting yourself, but eating enough of the good stuff. A way that involves practicing making healthy choices, thats all about developing a healthier relationship with food.
Let me be clear: you are making it SO hard for yourself, and it doesnt need to be.
None of them happen overnight and youre totally OK with that concept. You understand it, you get itto be frank its f*cking obvious!
Your relationship with food is the same. Its a practice, not some arbitrary result you measure on a scale.
Isnt it time to treat it as such?
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Daniel is the CEO of EvolutionEat, where he'll teach you how to master your diet, stop overeating, and take control of your health.
Daniel is exceptionally good at high performance coaching, as it pertains to diet and lifestyle. As a world class motivator, lifestyle designer, and dietary strategist, he specializes in unpacking motivation, disentangling emotions and distractions from intentions, and getting to the bottom of what really influences our choices.
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4 Obvious Metaphors to Show Why Diets are Freaking DUMB! - The Good Men Project (blog)
