episode 183: why you aren’t getting the results you want
Hey friends!
Welcome to episode 183 of The Diet Diaries.
Today’s topic is one that hits home for many of us: what to do when you're frustrated with not making progress on your goals. Whether it's weight loss, getting stronger, or improving your relationship with food, we usually throw up our hands, say it’s not working and give up entirely or jump to another new quick fix program. But that’s not actually going to change anything.
Here’s what I’m talking about today:
Are you really being consistent with your efforts? We’ll explore what true consistency looks like and how to achieve it.
How to assess whether your expectations are realistic and aligned with your efforts.
Discover practical tips for aligning your daily actions with your long-term goals.
Tips for maintaining consistency and progress during the summer months when routines often change.
Let’s figure out how to work through these all too common challenges while being kind and honest with yourself. Let’s get real about what it takes to achieve the results you want.
-
183
[00:00:00] Hello friends. It's episode 183 of the diet diaries. I do know that. Um, I was out to brunch with a really long time good friends of ours. And, um, the, the husband, my friend, Pete. Hi, Pete, if you're listening. I was like, you're getting really close to 200 episodes. And I'm like, Oh my God, I can't believe you know that.
I appreciate your fan support. Um, but I am, I can't believe I'm getting close to 1, 183. I started the podcast in December of 2000, not quite, December of 2020. So coming up on four years later this year, which I cannot believe. Um, and there has been a new episode. Not every Monday, but almost every Monday.
I've definitely skipped a handful here and there. I'm going to be skipping, usually when I go on vacation, I'll skip a week. I'm going to be skipping in a few weeks. We are going on to Costa Rica in just a couple of weeks. We've been planning this for a long time. If you have been following along for a while, [00:01:00] you know that I plan our vacations really far out.
Um, I just like how I am. So we're super excited to, um, be going there and, uh, I will share lots about it. traveling, food, eating, movement, how it all, how I approach all of that when we're away. I think I'll probably do a podcast episode when we get back all about it. I did a big one on our trip to Greece.
I'll link that in the show notes. Um, that was almost two weeks of travel, international travel, which Costa Rica obviously is as well. Um, and I talked all about like how I ate, how I thought about food. Um, and I think it's, can be helpful, right? So I'm gonna, I'm gonna share that. Anyway, I'm like digressing off of what I was going to talk about today.
So, although it does kind of fit a little bit, um, what I wanted to talk about today is when we get frustrated that we are not making progress on the things we want to be making progress on, um, and [00:02:00] what do we need to adjust when that happens? Do we need to adjust our actions? And, or, because sometimes it's not, it's not one or the other, do we need to adjust our expectations?
Um, and this, this is true for like so many different goals, um, around getting stronger, around weight loss, around relationship to food, around body image. we get frustrated that like, A, I'm still thinking the things I've always been thinking, the scale isn't moving, my clothes aren't changing, I'm still binging, I'm still not working out, whatever the thing is, we get frustrated very often.
And part of that is because progress takes way longer than we want it to or than we expect it to, that's part of it. But part of it also is that we either have an unrealistic expectation of the change that we're trying to do, maybe in a fixed [00:03:00] amount of time, or we're not willing to get radically honest with ourselves about what we're doing and how consistent we are being with the actions we're taking that are in alignment or not in alignment with that goal that we are working on.
Um, and so this is like a really like confrontational thing to address. Um, because we have to be uncomfortably honest with ourselves. And when it comes to consistency, which is really what this is about, whether we're talking about food or movement or behavior or how we're talking to ourselves, this is all about consistency is most people are not very consistent, but we think we're being consistent.
Being consistent is not doing something all week long and then not doing it at all on the weekends. Being consistent is not doing something once a day [00:04:00] and it's all relative, right? Because let's say like strength training consistently is like three times a week, whereas eating protein consistently is like three times a day, right?
So it is relative to the thing in terms of like the frequency. So just like give me some creative license here as I'm talking about this and apply it in the way that you know that I'm needing for you to apply it. Um, I'm always checking to make sure that the microphone is on when I'm doing this because there have been a couple times where it hasn't been, I've had to re record.
Um, so like, for instance, like let's, let's talk about, let's talk about fat loss because it's always like the easy go to. Um, and we cannot control the scale, right? So we cannot control the outcome on the scale. We can only control our actions and our behaviors. However, A lot of times, we don't see progress on the scale because we're not being consistent.
There are other reasons why we may not see progress on the scale, but most of the time, it's because we are not being consistent with the things we know we need to [00:05:00] do. And the things we know we need to do are a combination of like values based and biology based. And if the biology based piece is something that feels like it's not in alignment with your values, cool, that's when you need to readjust your expectations.
Right? Like, so with fat loss, right? We know that, um, eating an optimal amount of protein is super important. We know that eating a lot of veggies is important. We know that eating bigger meals and fewer snacks is super important. And if you're not doing, let's just three, just three skills, prioritizing an efficient protein at every meal, um, loading up your lunch and dinner plates, half the plate full of veggies.
And in the morning incorporating some other type of high fiber fruit. Or high fiber food, I will say. And then eating big enough meals so that you are not looking for a snack 2 3 hours later, right? Three key skills. And you may or may not be working on those or others, but whatever, let's say, just three skills are.
[00:06:00] In order to lose fat, you need to be doing those three skills 80 90 percent of the time. I would say probably even 90 percent of the time, right? And you hear people talk all the time about the 80 20 rule, And I don't even like to go there, because 20 percent of the time you're not doing the thing at all.
It's like, well, how far are you going in the other direction then? Right? It's like not doing the thing doesn't mean that you say, fuck it and do whatever you want. Because when it comes to fat loss, that can impact all the other stuff you've done in terms of a calorie intake, calorie deficit situation. So, let's say if we, if there's seven days in a week, which is, and let's say three meals a day, just for like, you know, examples sake, that's 21 meals a week.
80 percent of 21, let me whip out my calculator because I am [00:07:00] incapable of doing that math, is rounded up 17 meals a week. 90 percent is 19 meals a week. So 17 to 19 out of your 21 meals a week need to be efficient protein, plate half full of veggies and big enough that you're not eating for four to six hours.
So right off the bat, get honest with yourself, right? That is basically like almost every day minus maybe A lunch here, a dinner there, a breakfast there, whatever, minus like, you know, three to four meals across the week. That's what consistency looks like. When it comes to this, right, strength training would be different because it's not, you're not strength training three times a day.
So if you are not losing fat, the first thing to look at is are you being consistent with the things that you're working on? And I just gave you that's one example. And if you're not, then you can connect those dots. [00:08:00] If you are being consistent and you're still not seeing changes, it's like, okay, well, let's dig a little bit.
Do we need to readjust our expectations? There's too many, there's too many variables here for me to start like running off examples of like why if you're, if you are truly being consistent, why you might not be losing fat. Like that's really like what one, one coaching is about. I mean, one of the reasons, one of the things, um, But like, for instance, one thing that comes top of mind is you might be really close to kind of like where your body likes to be, right?
If you're someone who's trying to lose like, let's say, 10 or 15 pounds, and again, that is dependent on the percentage, overall percentage of your body weight, um, it's going to be a lot harder to get off. So you could be really consistent, you could be being really consistent and your body's like, Nope. So, I'm cool where I am, thanks but no thanks.
And so that's, you know, and then that means we need to look at adjusting maybe our expectations and are they in alignment with our values, right? So [00:09:00] sometimes you will go really far, well I'm not losing weight, I need to eat less, I need to exercise more, I need to do more, more, more, more, more. I mean yes, in theory you could do that, you're gonna be fucking miserable, and there's no way any of that is gonna be in alignment with your values.
So this is when we have to look at the biology of what's happening, and what is going on here. And finding where these two things overlap so that you can be happy and really be taking care of your well being and get clarity on, you know, what actually really matters to you. Are you willing to sacrifice your mental and emotional well being in order to lose weight?
I mean, if you are, you're not in the right place here because I'm never going to tell you how to do that. That's not what this is about. You can go follow a million coaches on Instagram. Um, who are gonna tell you to like give up sugar and not have dessert and don't eat carbs and all this stuff. Um, you know, so there's a lot of kind of factors at play with this.
But again, I come back to that for a lot of people, it's that we're not being [00:10:00] consistent because we're not really clear on what consistency is. It's not perfection. It's not doing the thing all the time. But then I think sometimes when we start to grasp that, we're like, oh, I don't do the thing all the time.
Cool. I can do it half the time. Yeah, you could do it half the time and that's great and you're going to get a lot of benefits from that. But you may not be making progress towards a specific goal that you have because you're not doing that thing frequently enough. You know, a lot of, a lot of, um, a big challenge people come to me with is like at home during the week and on the weekends.
Like, there's a huge disparity there. That's like a very normal and common challenge that we have, right? If you're being consistent during the week, but on the weekend, You're not, you're barely doing any of the things you're doing during the week. That's gonna have a huge impact on your progress. And again, there's other variables, like some people have more flexibility with things and some people don't.
Genetics, right? My body gives me zero wiggle room, and I'm not actively trying to lose weight right now, but what I have in the past, I have [00:11:00] zero, zero wiggle room. My body is very, very sensitive. Some people's bodies are less sensitive, they have more wiggle room. People that I tend to work with are the less wiggle room people, right?
We're the people who struggle and it's harder and we have to be, um, very specific and very thoughtful most of the time. And so really the whole point of this episode was to talk to you and get you thinking about am I being, if I have a goal that I'm working on and I feel like I'm not making progress towards it.
At all? Or fast enough? The biggest question I want you to ask, and fast enough is very subjective, but if you're, if you have an expectation of losing like X amount of weight in a certain time, that right off the bat is not where you want to be. One, because we can't control that, and two, because putting urgency or a deadline on things just adds a lot of stress, and again, those are things we cannot [00:12:00] control.
But coming back to like, am I being consistent? And if you're not being consistent, how can I get more consistent? Look at the things that you're trying to be consistent with. Are they actually, are they too many? Are you trying to do too many things at once? Right? Humans adapt slowly to small changes over time.
The diet starts Monday. The workout starts Monday thing does not work. Identify one to two specific skills that you can work on and do them consistently. Right? So I rattled off three earlier. If you're not being consistent right now, start with one of those, one, and do that for a while, at least a couple weeks, until you're consistent with it, and then add on.
Um, that is really like the number one piece of advice I can give you is if you're not being consistent, you're trying, either you're trying to do too much, or you don't have any structure in place, and you don't have accountability, you don't, you're not working skills, you're trying to follow rules, like there's a lot of factors here.
But you need to be working a skill, something that can be [00:13:00] practiced in multiple different situations that requires, um, thoughtfulness and paying attention, and you need to be doing few, probably fewer than you're trying to do right now. Um, So yeah, that's really what I wanted to talk about today. And as we're coming into summer, this tends to get harder for people.
If you have kids, especially, and your kids are home from school, everything is different. People are going on vacations. We have different work schedules. Everything is different. So if you are working on something right now, looking at what does consistent mean and aligning your expectations with that, let's say, right, I'm saying 17 to 19 meals out of the week.
Let's say you're like, that's just too much. Okay, cool. There's no rule that says that. It's only if you're not making progress in a way that you have expectations. It's like, well, then my actions are not lining up properly, right? If I'm wanting to lose, I don't know, [00:14:00] whatever, 10 pounds and I haven't lost anything.
Well, am I being consistent? And it's like, well, maybe I want to put less focus on weight loss and I just want to focus on snacking less.
Then I can be more consistent with my actions in terms of that. Or I need to say, it could take me a year to lose 10 pounds. I need to stop looking for a change on the scale every time I get on, again, separate topic a little bit, and like really change the expectations of what fat loss looks like for me and my body based on lots of different circumstances, right?
So again, it comes back to consistency. relative to the thing that you're doing and what's a normal frequency, but also knowing that you can adjust. Doing something is always better than doing nothing. So if you can't, let's say, be consistent with some of like the food based things, 80 to 90 percent of the time, do what you can.
If it's 50 percent of the time, cool, that's still [00:15:00] something. But then you have to have your expectations in alignment with that around progress and know that it's going to be a lot slower. There's nothing wrong with that. That's totally fine. In some cases, maybe that's even better. It all depends. It's like when we're not willing to look at our expectations of progress and what we're doing, and we're not willing to see that there's a misalignment there.
Something has to change. Either the expectation has to change or the action has to change. There's not one right and one wrong. We make that decision based on like your life, your history, your goals, your values, your lifestyle, all of these things. But to be, to be living in a way where we're constantly frustrated and pissed because we're not.
getting the outcome that we want. Well, there's a reason why. And it's either the actions that we're taking or the outcome we've established. They don't fit. So the whole point of this, I probably should have said all that up front, is to figure out what do I change then? I either need to change the expectations on the outcome, or I need to change my actions, so [00:16:00] they line up better.
And this is where we should get radically honest, and it's an uncomfortable because we don't want to do that. We don't know, we don't want to admit, we don't want to be honest with ourselves, that something in either one of these places is not fitting together. They are misaligned. Off you go. If this is something you're struggling with, go figure out.
I've given you some ways to think about this. What is your misalignment? Where are you misaligned? And if you're not sure and you have no idea, like, I'm here. Reach out. Um, thanks for listening. I'll be back next week.