Katie wanted to get back on her weight-loss plan but she couldn’t seem to get started.
Every morning she’d tell herself that “today” was a new start and she would make it work.
Breakfast was always fine and she would carefully record it in her tracking program. But then something would happen and she would get off track.
A friend or a colleague wanted to go to lunch, and Katie’s plan to eat a light salad faded when she saw a plate of fries on the next table.
After that, her “healthy” afternoon snack became a couple of cookies. And by dinner time, she was tired so instead of cooking a healthy meal, she ordered pizza. Before it arrived, she had a glass (or two) of wine, and later in the evening, a bowl of ice cream. Oh yes, she also ran out of time to exercise, so she decided to let that wait until tomorrow as well.
Tomorrow, I’ll get started…
It’s all fine,” she said. “Today wasn’t the best day to start because it was a weekend, the weather was crummy, I was tired, etc.”
Except this happened over and over and Katie’s intention of losing ten pounds by now was clearly not going to happen.”
“I know exactly what to do, she said. “I have a very realistic and healthy plan to follow. But I just can’t stay with it and I never make any progress. I simply start over EVERY SINGLE day!”
As we talked, I tried to figure out if there were any barriers such as high stress or illness affecting her, but it sounded like her life was actually fine. She just kept having things come up and she’d let go of her plan, hoping to get back on track the next day.
Some of you are wondering how I sneaked into your home and found out you were doing this. Of course, this pattern is extremely common and sometimes, I slide into this as well.
How to fix “tomorrow syndrome”
So what’s the answer? First of all, Katie didn’t need a new diet plan or a fresh program. She just needed to stay on the plan she had laid out. So we worked on a list of simple things she could do to make her plan work. Here’s what we came up with:
1. Weigh herself every morning and record it. This doesn’t work for everyone, but for Katie, it gave her accountability.
2. Track her meals faithfully, even if they weren’t “perfect.”
3. Do her exercise an hour earlier so she wasn’t so likely to skip it.
4. Remind her husband (daily if necessary) that she was following her plan and preferred to not have ice cream and potato chips in the house.
5. Keep healthy snacks handy for mid-afternoon when she seemed to start looking for cookies.
We also decided that she would start my new book, “100 MORE Days of Weight Loss,” and each day, record her answers to the questions at the end of each lesson in the 100 MORE Days Journal.
Katie left my office with renewed hope and determination. These things were not new ideas for her but she was confident the list would keep her on track. I’ll let you know next week how she did.
If you’d like to read more about this topic, see Day 2 in “100 MORE Days of Weight Loss.”