Episode 96: The REAL Thing Keeping You Stuck (and It's Not What You Think)

Are you constantly starting over every Monday? Feel like you have to do everything perfectly — or not at all? You’re not alone.

In this episode, we’re breaking down one of the most common traps that holds women back from reaching their health, weight loss, and body composition goals: all-or-nothing thinking.

We’ll unpack:

• What all-or-nothing thinking actually is (and how to spot it)
• Why perfectionism keeps you stuck and inconsistent
• How obsessing over the scale can blind you to real progress
• What the research says about breaking this mindset pattern
• The truth about consistency vs. perfection
• Why small, “imperfect” habits compound into big results

Plus, you’ll walk away with simple mindset tools to stop self-sabotaging and start making progress that actually sticks.

Thanks for listening, we hope you enjoyed it.

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Transcript

0:44

Hey everyone, it's Joe here with the Booster Metabolism After Age 30 podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. So today we're gonna be talking about something that we see that sabotages progress all the time. If you have ever said to yourself I blew it today, so I met as well, just start over on Monday. Or maybe you've said, if I can't follow this plan perfectly, I shouldn't bother at all. If any of that sounds familiar, you're not alone. And today I'm gonna be talking about one of the biggest mindset traps that holds people back from losing weight, getting healthier, boosting their metabolisms and transforming their body. And it might not be what you think it is. What it is all or nothing thinking. And it's something that we see in coaching that really does just keep people spinning their wheels. So we're gonna break it all down today and talk about what it is. Why it sabotages your progress and then ways you can get out of that mindset trap. So what is all or nothing thinking, all or nothing Thinking is a cognitive distortion. It's a mental trap that causes you to view your actions, your efforts, and your outcomes in extremes. And it can sound like any of these things that you might say to yourself, if I'm not doing everything perfectly, I failed. Why bother? If I can't get a full workout in, might as well skip it. Why bother? I ate something off plan, so the whole day is ruined, so I'm just gonna eat whatever I want. And it really boils down to this on the wagon, off the wagon thinking that keeps people stuck in cycles of over restricting and then burnout. But this mindset can also sneak in around progress you might be making, especially when it comes to the scale. And we see this with a lot of the women that we coach. So a common thing that we see is thinking that you haven't made any progress. If the scale hasn't moved the way you expected it to, or you haven't made. All the progress that you're hoping to in the timeframe that you think you should make it. So this is really dangerous because this kind of thinking completely negates all the positive habits you've built, like prepping meals, learning to eat more protein, starting to lift weights just starting to generally move more. It can negate all the strength and muscle gains that you might have that don't necessarily show up on the scale and can really, negate all the non-scale winds that you might be experiencing, like better energy, improved sleep, better digestion, and fewer cravings. So if you're only measuring progress by the scale, you might be missing so many of the winds that actually matter and can actually lead to lasting change. So why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we think this way? This all or nothing thinking is deeply human. So congratulations. You're a human In psychology, it's known as dichotomous thinking, a form of black and white thinking. Where we see our efforts as either a success or failure, good or bad, or on or off track. And so why, why do we do this to ourselves? Why do we fall into this mindset trap? Often it's driven by perfectionists. We set a high rigid standard, and we can't meet it perfectly. We give up entirely. It can also be fueled by the belief that there's a perfect formula for success. And if we don't follow every part of that formula flawlessly, we assume we failed, or that formula isn't going to work for us. And then underneath it all is usually a fear of failure. A fear of wasting time, a fear of wasting energy on something that won't work, or just a lack of trust in the process. But here's the real moment of truth. There really is no perfect formula. There's definitely things that everyone can do that will generally improve their health and get them closer to their goals. Like things like eating enough protein. Lifting weights, getting in, plenty of movement every day, getting good sleep. Those are all things that are going to benefit anyone and help move anyone closer to their goals. But what works for one person exactly might not work for another. And even for you, what ha what has worked in the past might not be what you need now to progress you towards your goals. Really the key here is that we don't have to be perfect, but we do have to be consistent. Consistency is the name of the game and making progress with your health. Improving your body composition, boosting your metabolism, or reaching your weight loss goal is about building a collection of habits not following a perfect plan. So again, like I said, there are core behaviors that will move everyone forward. Those are things like eating enough protein, lifting weights, getting daily movement. Managing your stress and sleep, but you don't have to do all of those things perfectly every day or even at the same time. And you'll probably get a lot better results by doing things imperfectly, but consistently doing them than trying to do things perfectly for a week and then quitting. So what happens here is consistency and consistency in habits. Those habits stack up after a while when you're just relentless on being perfect at everything, it usually leads to burnout. Another reason we fall into the all or nothing thinking is we get impatient. You might be doing all the right things, lifting weights, eating well, sleeping more, and still thinking, why haven't I lost more weight yet? This should be working faster. Maybe I need to switch to something more aggressive. And we live in a quick fix culture. We, one of our coaches calls it, we expect things to arrive on our doorstep like Amazon overnight. And unfortunately a lot of fitness marketing feeds the lie that results should be fast, but real transformation takes a lot longer than we want it to. A 2020 review published in obesity reviews found that most people underestimate the time it takes to lose weight sustainably. And this misalignment between expectation and reality usually leads people to quit too early. So when you're feeling like progress is going too slow what we tend to do is hop to the next plan, hoping the next, magical diet will be the solution that fixes all of our problems and get us the results that we want overnight. And but really what happens is every time we stop and restart, we lose valuable momentum. So throwing in the towel really doesn't get you closer. It just resets the clock. And when we do this over and over, we do it again and really just spin our wheels. Okay, so what does work in terms of mindset and what gets you out of this all or nothing mindset? So I think you, it really just starts with shifting your mindset. What I like to think or imagine is that a healthy journey is like traveling a thousand miles, and so every healthy meal that you eat is a step forward. Every strength workout is a step forward. Every time you choose to keep going, even if you're not perfect at it, you're still making progress and moving forward. So even when you're not doing it right, you're still reinforcing new patterns and behaviors and keeping yourself directionally in the direction of that journey. You're building identity based changes and becoming someone who eats well, who moves a lot. And who really takes good care of her body. So again, you don't need to be perfect to reach your goal. You just need to keep walking in the right direction and accumulating steps towards your ultimate goal. And as you keep going, there will be time to fine tune. But first you just have to be focused on showing up and taking steps every day. That's how you're going to complete the thousand Mile journey. James Clear talks about this in his Atomic Habits book. If you haven't read that, I highly recommend it. It's really powerful. And so in his book, James Clear, talks about the story of a man who lost over 200 pounds in two years, and his very first habit, the thing that he mastered. Was showing up at the gym for five minutes and that's it. The deal he made with himself is that he would go to the gym and stay for five minutes. He didn't do a full workout when he first started. He didn't try to overhaul his diet on day one. He made a habit so easy that he couldn't fail and really couldn't come up with any excuses, and he could have very easily told himself. The entire time. This isn't doing anything. Why bother? I'm not going and working out for an hour and a half. Why does it matter? But he didn't. He just kept his promise to himself to show up at the gym for five minutes. And over time he did start to stay longer and he started lifting weights and he started to change his diet. But. Again, the first thing he did was mastered the tiny habit of just getting himself to the gym for five minutes. And like I said, if he'd told himself, unless I go to the gym for an hour, why bother? I won't make progress. He never would've started at all. And so the thing to keep remembering is no one begins their journey doing everything perfectly, especially when we're going about like making a big change. In any area of our life, most of us do better by starting with one small habit like walking or lifting weights once a week, and then stack behaviors from there. And what happens is that over time, those small changes compound into big results. So how we can break out of all or nothing thinking is something psychologists call cognitive restructuring to help people challenge and replace rigid, unhelpful thoughts. And here's how it works and how you can apply it. So the first step is awareness. I always say the first step is awareness about anything. So you're gonna notice some of these thoughts that may not be helping you and just catch yourself thinking them. So it might be, I've missed a workout. I failed. Might as well skip the whole week. Or I didn't meal prep, I'm off track. Might as well eat out every meal and who cares what I eat. And but after you, you catch this thought that may not be so helpful. You wanna replace it or reframe it with something more flexible. So if you know it's, I missed a workout, why bother you might replace it with one missed workout, isn't gonna undo my progress. It's just one missed workout or. I didn't meal prep, I'm off track, so why bother? You can then add on to that. But the truth is I can still make a good choice today. Reframing those unhelpful thoughts can really get you down the path. You also wanna aim for B minus work. Psychologist Kristin Neff says that self-compassion is one of the strongest predictors of long-term success. And this is so true. People who are relentless with themselves. Our total perfectionists often don't talk to themselves very nicely, and it just, after a while, it swamps them. So if you can get comfortable with being a minus work, you don't need a plus performance all the time, and just tell yourself that B minus consistency beats perfection. Okay. Also work on tracking consistency, not perfection. So maybe keep a habit track, or, I'm sorry, a habit tracker and just celebrate showing up. Maybe it's a checklist where you can check the box if you just did, something that's, again, aimed in the right direction and not perfectly hitting your macros or PR ping at the gym every week. There is real momentum and truly like a dopamine release by just keeping the streak alive and keeping those habits going. And then, practice what is called all or something thinking instead of totally giving up. Ask yourself, what can I do today to take a step forward? We always say something is always better than nothing. So some days are harder than others and. Some days, all you can get done is a walk around the block, and that's better than laying on the couch all day, I promise. It is. And the more that you get yourself moving and get some momentum, the better off you're gonna be and the faster you're gonna get back to your habits. So my closing thoughts on this are. I think we think that being a perfectionist is really noble and is gonna get us the best results. It can feel really productive, but it really is one of the biggest things that stands between you and the results you want. We see it all the time as coaches, and the really good news is that you don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have all the answers. You really just need to keep showing up. And keep on that journey. Usually imperfectly. But you do need to show up with consistency and with compassion and trust that those small steps really do add up, and that is where your real transformation is going to begin. So hopefully some of this resonated with you. And if you are really stuck in this trap of starting a diet on Monday, blowing it by Wednesday, starting a new diet the next week, that really is a terrible cycle to be in and really is gonna keep you spinning your wheels. So try some of these tips I've suggested and hopefully that will help. Okay, that's all I've got today. Thanks for tuning in and we'll catch you next time. Thanks so much. Bye.