episode 202: why you need to start doing less to get more results
In Episode 202 of The Diet Diaries, I’m offering a new take on an old cliche: less is more. How do we take that concept and make it relevant to behavior change? We’re so used to that “all-or-nothing” mindset, especially around food and exercise, but I’m sharing why that approach just never works. Instead, I’ll talk about the power of focusing on one small thing at a time to create real, lasting change—without burnout.
Here’s a little preview of what we’ll cover:
How the all-or-nothing approach usually backfires (and what to do instead)
How to choose just one thing to focus on—and actually stick with it
The surprising math of consistency and how small actions add up over time
If you’re ready to break the cycle of doing too much too fast and find a sustainable way forward, this episode will give you the insights to start making real progress.
I also share all the info for my new holiday freebie, Photo Freedom! A 5 day mini course to help you feel more confident taking and sharing photos this holiday season (and beyond). Sign up here.
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202
[00:00:00] Hey everyone, this is episode 202 of the Diet Diaries. I'm gonna keep this one short today, here's why. Because as I'm recording this I'm kind of in the middle, not kind of, I'm in the middle of recording all of the lessons for Photo Freedom and their audio lessons, so I've already done like a lot of talking.
Which actually, I almost forgot. Let me give a little plug for this. I'm doing a holiday freebie. I love doing holiday freebies. It's kind of like my gift to you. And I think we can all use a little bit of extra support this time of year. This is the third year in a row I've done a holiday freebie. The last two years I did nourishing notes, which were daily emails.
This year, totally different. This is very focused, very specific, very time oriented. kind of limited, which I think is a good thing. It's a five day free course. November 18th and November 22nd. You don't have to do it on that timing though. You can sign up and do it whenever you want. And it's called, like I said, Photo Freedom.
And this [00:01:00] is going to be skills to help you feel better about being in photos this holiday season and beyond. It's not just about the holidays. It's for photos literally any time of year. So you can stop looking at photos and feeling so shitty about yourself. So there's going to be five audio lessons delivered, one delivered each day, 10 minutes or less, with a very specific kind of homework assignment to do with it.
Real talk, you're going to need to do these assignments more than once to like really internalize this. I'm not going to sit here and tell you that you listen to these five lessons and in 50 minutes of listening and in five quick homework assignments, you've suddenly changed how you feel about how you look in photos.
Like that's just not how change works. And anyone who promises you those outcomes is lying to you and probably stealing your money. Um, this takes practice. And also the skills I'm asking, giving you the homework assignments are simple. They are doable. They are not complicated. So the things that you need to do to change are simple.
You just have to do them right. And I don't say that to marginalize or minimize [00:02:00] you. the effort that it takes to do it, but it's also not complicated, right? It doesn't require like intensive psychotherapy. It requires you showing up and being willing to get a little uncomfortable and really think about some of these things I'm asking you to think about.
This is totally free. So even if you feel like you don't have the time right now or the interest, still just grab it and hold on to it because this is useful, I mean this is a life skill, right? This isn't a holiday skill, it's a life skill. So I'll have the link in the show notes, it'll be on Instagram and all this stuff and you can always DM me and I can add you.
And um, that's that. Okay, so here is what we're going to talk about today. This is something that I actually said that came up in conversation on a new client call in a, like, a kickoff call at this point. It'll be like, you know, two weeks ago, and it's a concept I talk about all the time, but I articulated it in this very specific way, and it really resonated with that client, and I wrote it down, and I'm like, you know, I'm gonna go talk about this.
So here's, here's what it was that I said. Doing less now sets you up to do more [00:03:00] over time. This is kind of like a little bit more nuanced version of the less is more concept. And we talk about this in coaching a lot because when it comes to making changes around food, exercise, relationship with food, we are very all or nothing, right?
Diet starts Monday. Clean out the fridge. Today is my last chance to have ice cream and cake and cookies. I'm going to eat it all and tomorrow I'm going to be good. And I'm going to have grilled chicken and broccoli and rice and I'm going to have egg whites and fat free yogurts and I'm not going to snack and I'm only going to drink water and I'm not going to have alcohol.
All the things, right? We think we do all the things. With exercise, it's like, oh, I'm going to a 5 a. m. boot camp class every day this week. Or I'm going to four spin classes. Or I'm going to go to the gym every day. Right? It's not going to happen. And if it does happen, it's going to happen for a week or two, and then you're going to burn out.
Because we don't adapt that way. That is not how humans adapt. We adapt little by little. And that is shown, and we have evidence of that in so many different situations from strength training to [00:04:00] immunotherapy for food allergies. to exposure therapy for anxiety and obsessive compulsive disorder and so many different things.
Humans adapt little by little and so often in coaching we will talk about doing less. Less is more, right? If your tendency, pretty much everyone's tendency, is to swing between the extremes of all or nothing, what happens if instead of doing five things You know, getting up early to work out, um, having egg whites for breakfast, having grilled chicken and broccoli and brown rice for dinner, and giving up soda and only drinking water.
You picked one of those things. And just separately, I'm not suggesting that you actually do any of those things. I'm just using the stereotypical kind of cliched things just for, you know, just to explain my point. What if you picked one thing? One thing. Immediately your brain goes, I, I, that's not enough.
It's not going to do anything. Why bother? Well, if doing all the things only [00:05:00] lasts a week or two, or even I'll give you the benefit of the doubt, let's say it lasts a month, let's say it even lasts two months or longer. It's not going to last forever. So that's really the question. Is what you are doing now something that you can do forever?
And by doing that, and right away, you know the answer, right? No one is, pretty much nobody is willing to give up on any of these things for life, um, and you shouldn't, you don't need to, I don't want to say should, you don't need to unless you have a medical contraindication to these things unless you are allergic.
You don't have to give up cake or sugar or coffee or soda or any of these things unless they are a overt clinical detriment or problem, right, with your health, which is outside of my scope as a coach.
If you do one small thing and get really good at that, you build up confidence. You start to really recondition the way you think about things. You build evidence of what you're capable of. [00:06:00] And you are able to do it for a much longer period of time, in some form forever, right? Things may ebb and flow, and not to say that you're never going to have a struggle again, you will because you're a human.
And you will have the skills and the tools to know how to respond to that struggle versus quitting and giving up and then starting over with your 10 new things. on the following Monday. So if you do less now, you do one thing now, and it sets you up to do more over time. You were able to stick with that one thing for a much longer period of time than if you tried to do five things today and only did it for a month, right?
And we could do a math example of this, right? Let's say you start five new things, and I already listed off those things, and you do them every day for two weeks. Right? So that's 14 days, 5 times 7 is 35, that's 70, right? That's 70 things. And then you get so sick of it and you are missing bread or ice cream or you're too tired to get up or your kid is [00:07:00] homesick or you've got a work deadline and you can't do a couple of those things and then suddenly it's like, well fuck it, well I can't do everything so why even bother?
It's never going to work. And a couple weeks in, two weeks in, you're not doing anything. Whereas if you took one thing, and one thing is like simple, it's doable, you're like, I can do this. every day, let's say. And you do that one thing for a whole week. That's seven days, right? And then you are able to keep up with that one thing, right?
So what did I say? I said that was 70 things. So you've done that one thing for seven days. That's, so that's seven things. And then 10 weeks, a little over two months, two and a half months, right? Could you, you know, have protein at breakfast? And I'm, I'm, I'm saying every day right now, and I'm really just saying that to like explain my point.
I'm not saying that because you need to be perfect. I hope you guys can like make that distinction. I'm not saying you have to do these things every day. I'm doing this just to like explain my point and to give you some contextual math. If you could do one simple thing, [00:08:00] let's even call it five to seven days a week.
For two and a half months, that's a win, a huge win. And because it's one thing, you were able to do that over time and then continue with it even beyond those two and a half months, three months, four months down the road, you are still having protein at breakfast five to seven days a week. Whereas you do all of those things for two weeks and then you crash and burn.
And so you've only got two weeks of benefit. Right, so you've got two weeks of kind of, you know, there's like a little bit of that, like new, oh my God, I'm starting this, and it's exciting. It's new and novel and maybe you lose a couple pounds and then you crash and burn. So you've got two weeks of quote changes, which are not actually changes versus two and a half months of changes to one specific thing.
It's to me when you kind of talk her through that way, it's like it's obvious. But our brains don't think that way. So I want you to really think about this concept of doing less now sets you to do, [00:09:00] sets you up to do more over time. To be able to stay with the skills longer. To get a much more long lasting result.
Um, I'm going to say permanent impact, right? That's not to say that we don't have to continue showing up, we do. Um, but slow change is, I'm going to say, longer lasting change. Slow change is longer lasting change. Fast change is usually permanent. Has a much more temporary results most of the time, and we want results, right?
Results are helpful because they do keep us going. Getting results from one specific skill is pretty awesome, right? So let's say your thing is eating protein at breakfast every day, you will start to feel the bet, the impact of that. On day one, you will feel less hungry for a snack. Mid-morning. You will be in a better mood throughout the day.
It will start to moderate cravings throughout the day, and you will just feel like a happier person overall. versus like moody and [00:10:00] grumpy and looking for snacks all day. You will feel that on day one. So you can get results with slow changes. It's not that you don't get results. You just have to be kind of smart and strategic about the skill that you're using and how consistent you can be with it.
So this is really important. The next time you feel like you want to make a change, try doing less. It's going to feel uncomfortable and your brain is going to tell you it's not enough. Your brain is going to tell you nothing's going to happen. Your brain is going to tell you they're not working hard enough.
This can't possibly. get you where you want to go. And I will tell you that it is actually the only way to get you where you want to go. You've done it all. You've done the other way before and it doesn't work, right? Like you know that you're here now because that hasn't worked over and over and over and over again.
So when you always do what you've always done, you always get what you've always got, right? I didn't make that up, but it is really so true. You've got to try something different, and that something different is doing less now. I know it's uncomfortable. I know it's hard. I know [00:11:00] you're going to feel like you're not doing enough.
You have to give it time. Time is the great equalizer. I mean, really, of everything in life, time is the great equalizer, especially with this. You have got to give it time. Faster is not better. Urgent is not better. Time is better. Slower is better. Longer is better. I'm going to leave you with that. Photo Freedom, sign up.
It's free. You got nothing to lose. Share it with a friend if you think you have some people in your life that this would be helpful for, and I'll see you next week.