Are you hyper-motivated to eat better and exercise more?

What’s going on when you have a lot of motivation to eat better but you keep finding yourself back where you started?

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“No pain, no gain.” That’s what they say, right?

I ran my first race – a half marathon – about 25 years ago. My goal was to finish. That’s it. Just finish the distance while the timekeepers were still keeping time. I had 3 hours.

The result: 2 hours, 19 minutes and I was thrilled!

The next year was a major letdown

I set a goal to run my second half-marathon much faster. Instead of training just for distance, I trained for both distance and speed.

And I’ve never run another race. Never. Ever. 😢

I was too motivated

Could I shave 19 minutes – a very lofty goal – off my time?

It sounds weird to be too motivated, but that’s exactly what happened to me. I was so excited about the results I might get that I over-trained.

Sadly, I still suffer from that hamstring injury today.

Being hyper-motivated is the undoing of a lot of worthy goals. I see it all the time when I work with people on their diet and lifestyle changes.

One of my jobs is to protect you from yourself

I get it.

You’re excited for what might be. You envision yourself strutting in those back-of-the-closet jeans that are at least a size too small. Or you panic when your doctor says it’s time to up your dose of medication, and you swear you’ll never eat another French fry.

Motivation soars and ideas of big and rapid change overtake your best judgment.

You think strict is the answer. After all, you deserve some sort of punishment for being “too lazy to exercise and too weak to walk by Cinnabon without buying at least one Center of the Roll.”

I want you to take action when your motivation is high, but I don’t want you to injure your psyche the way I injured my hamstring and ruin your joy in eating and living the way I ruined my joy in running a race.

So allow me to rein in both you and your hyper-motivation to eat better.

It doesn’t work. It never lasts. It usually results in feeling miserable about yourself. So please, no super strict diet rules or painful exercise routines.

This happens when you focus on what you shouldn’t eat

The results of a study agree with what I already knew.

When you focus on what you “shouldn’t eat,” you really, really, really want it!

When researchers told women who tended to overeat to avoid their favorite snacks for a full day, the women ended up eating about one-third more than a similar group of women who weren’t told what they could and couldn’t eat.

Makes sense to me. As soon as you tell me what I can’t have, it’s all I think about.

It’s human nature. Here’s more on the science of motivation.

Is hyper-motivation to eat better ruining your success?

If healthy eating and behavior change were easy, the world would be much healthier. You would already do what you wish you did. And you wouldn’t call yourself a diet failure. (If you call yourself a diet failure, do these 5 things asap.)

Healthy eating and behavior change are not easy. So when you throw yourself into big sweeping changes, you amplify the hard parts. And there are a lot of hard parts.

How to know if you’re too motivated

If you relate to any of the following, you might need to relax your efforts a bit.

• You’re bored to death with your food choices
• You eat a limited number of foods
• You skip social activities because they might interfere with your diet rules
• You feel like you’re in food jail
• You think or talk nonstop about your diet
• You have overuse injuries from exercise
• You spend too much time working out

Do this instead

Instead of letting your Hercules-strength motivation lead you to run like a bear is chasing you, use that powerful motivation to make a doable plan. Doable. That means slow and steady.

Your changes should be only slightly outside your comfort zone.

Add chickpeas to your salad this week instead of swearing off all beef and chicken for the rest of your life or at least until your next lab appointment.

Walk 10 minutes every day after breakfast instead of 30. You can get to 30 next week or next month.

Try 2 new healthy recipes this week instead of following some diet guru’s 30-day meal plan.

Eat 1 fast-food sandwich and a piece of fruit for lunch instead of splurging on 2 fast-food sandwiches. A former patient did exactly this on his way to a 60-pound weight loss! That’s right! He was motivated to eat healthy and lost 60 pounds after he decided to take the slow and steady path forward.

We often stand in the way of our own successes. If you have trouble following through on your wellness plans, you might need to step out of your way. Take a look at your goals. If they’re so large that you aren’t very confident you can meet them, dial them back. Choose a smaller goal that’s only slightly outside your comfort zone.

Then another. Then another.

And click here to download the free guide. Stop making these 5 common mistakes and start rocking your health goals.