How To Ditch The All Or Nothing Mentality

80% of people who lose weight gain it all back within 12 months. Upwards of 40% of people gain even more weight back than they originally lost. Diets and extreme measures clearly aren’t working.

This is a story about Ashley.

We often over think what it takes to start a fitness journey. We get stuck in an “all or nothing” mentality that prevents us from even trying, so we fail before we begin.

The cycle goes like this:

👉🏻Start a new hardcore workout regime and diet

👉🏻Get busy with life & fall off

👉🏻Start again, expect failure and quit

Sound familiar?

Extreme efforts will get you extreme results, but they are never sustainable.

We set ourselves up for failure because we go so hard so fast, jump ship when life gets gets in the way, and start over from the beginning. We have to break out of this mindset in order to see success.

Shift your focus from:

❌ “I don’t have time to spend hours in the gym”

✅ “I have 20 minutes, what can I get done in this time”

❌ “I don’t have the energy to prep every single meal this week”

✅ “let me prepare some protein options to set myself up for success”

❌“I missed one workout so I may as well quit”

✅“One missed workout won’t derail my progress”

Expecting failure before we even try keeps us from ever succeeding.

My current client Ashley lived with the all or nothing mentality for years.

She had been trying to lose weight since college, trying just about every diet and exercise routine there is. And while she would see some results for a bit, she was never able to stick with anything longer than a couple of months. She was motivated, but at some point, life would interrupt.

Eventually, she started expecting to fail. Even worse, so did everyone else in her life. Her husband, friends and even kids would say “this is too hardcore”. She was desperate for results. Even though she felt hopeless, she didn’t know any other way.

“I just want my kids to be proud of me”, Ashley told me through tears. “I’ve always been trying something, why can’t I stick with it? What’s wrong with me?”.

This was heartbreaking to hear, and Ashley isn’t alone. Another mom I work with said she felt like she’s destined to stay fat(her words). And one of my dad clients told me he felt like his wife and kids had given up hope that he’d ever workout for more then a month at a time.

We expect failure because it’s all we’ve ever experienced.

But Ashley’s story doesn’t end there.

For the past 7 months, her perspective has shifted from getting quick results to creating a lifelong plan. After 4 weekends in a row of travel, events, and gatherings where she would normally feel like a failure and give up, she sent me this message:

“She’s back on track and fitting into jeans she hasn’t fit into since 2019.”

Ashley has lost 18 lbs and finally stopped yo-yo dieting. She found a routine that she can actually stick with.

Once she broke out of the all or nothing, destined for failure mindset, Ashley was able to find a flexible routine that worked for her busy life, and has been able to stick with it for over 9 months now. Because fitness should fit into your life, not the other way around. “I haven’t been great at getting to the gym but I’ve been doing everything else that I can and I’m ok! It doesn’t have to be this all or nothing thing, it’s a work in progress forever.”

If you’re one of the 80% of people who have lost weight only to see it come right back, please let Ashley’s story encourage you. You’re not destined to fail. You can do this. The key is to do what she’s learned to do: when you feel like you’ve screwed it all up, just keep swimming.

I was lucky enough to have her on my podcast where she told her whole story. Because, while the physical transformation above is amazing, her mindset shift is even more impressive. It’s, honestly, my favorite episode yet.