All-or-Nothing Thinking: Why It’s Keeping You Stuck & How to Break Free

Breaking Free from All or Nothing Thinking for Lasting Fitness and Weight Loss

Welcome to the Muscles & Mindset Revolution! I'm Anne Jones, a certified life coach and fitness professional with over 15 years of experience. This podcast is for busy, ambitious women tired of quick fixes and ready for lasting results. Discover the pitfalls of 'all or nothing' thinking and how to break free from the cycle of inconsistency, guilt, and burnout. Learn practical strategies for sustainable habits, long-term weight loss, and building confidence without obsessing over perfection. Tune in to understand how small, manageable changes can lead to lasting transformation and why progress thrives in the 'messy middle' rather than extremes. Let's start your journey to a stronger body and a healthier mindset together!

00:00 Welcome to the Muscles and Mindset Revolution
00:36 Breaking the Cycle of Inconsistency
02:20 Understanding All or Nothing Thinking
07:25 Real Client Stories and Solutions
12:34 Applying the Gray Area to Your Life
14:31 Three Steps to Ditch All or Nothing Mindset
16:22 Conclusion and Next Steps

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Ready to build strength, feel confident AF, and lose fat without obsessing or stressing over it? [Apply to Join the Muscles & Mindset program here].

Connect With Me:

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• [FREE YOUR BODY YOUR WAY GUIDE]

• [Join our Free Facebook Community]

• [https://musclesandmindset.ca/]

Ready to build strength, feel confident AF, and lose fat without obsessing or stressing over it? [Apply to Join the Muscles & Mindset program here].

Connect With Me:

• Instagram: [@annejonesfit]

• Website: [https://www.annejonescoaching.ca/]

• YouTube: [https://www.youtube.com/@annejones]

Love This Episode? Share & Review!

If you found this episode helpful, take a screenshot and share it on your Instagram stories, tagging [@annejonesfit] so I can say thanks! Don’t forget to leave a review on your favourite podcast platform—it helps more women discover the show and start their transformation!

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to the muscles and mindset revolution. The podcast for busy, ambitious women who are tired of chasing quick fixes and are ready to finally achieve real lasting results, stronger bodies, sustainable habits, and long-term weight loss. I'm your host, Anne Jones, certified life coach and fitness professional for over 15 years here to help you break free from inconsistency, overwhelm, and burnout, and help you to build strength, feel confident, AF, and lose weight without obsessing or stressing over weight loss. No BS, just simple, sustainable results. Ever find yourself thinking. Well, I already ate one cookie. I might as well finish the whole box. Or maybe. Oh, I missed my workout today. So what's the point of even trying for the rest of the week. This cycle is not just to making it harder for you to hit your fitness goals. It's keeping you stuck in a cycle of starting over feeling guilty and never feeling like you're doing enough. I often hear this, stop start language from. You know, in the DMS, the women who I speak to my new clients. And that's, if I could give you one little tidbit right now, it's like, let's stop viewing. This is your life. Right? So let's stop viewing this as something that has a beginning and an end, because if you are truly. In this for life, like you want to be healthy and fit for life. You want to lose weight for life, whatever. There is no end date. There is no expiration. I would like you to think of it more as like. A circle or a spiral that keeps going, and yes, you can get stuck in one part of the spiral until you learn whatever you need to learn to keep going. But it does not have a beginning and an end for sure, for sure. So if you step off that start and stop. You know, hamster wheel. Then there is no more starting and stopping. You're opting out of the cycle. You're unsubscribing. So if you are ready to do that, if you're ready to stop the cycle and start making consistent progress towards building strength. towards losing weight permanently, towards feeling extremely confident in your clothes. This episode is for you. let's talk about all or nothing. Thinking one of my favorite topics, I could talk about this all day. Because I see this all the time with my clients. being a recovering perfectionist myself. I tend to attract, women with perfectionist tendencies. And. Perfectionism. I think that it's evolving now. I think it used to be previously seen as a positive thing. but I definitely don't see it as a positive or helpful attribute. It is a mindset where if you can't do something perfectly, you think it's not worth doing at all. It's not, perfectionist is not someone who does everything perfectly. It is someone who wants to do everything perfectly. And if they can't, they don't. fully committed or you're off the rails. Does this sound familiar? This is so funny. Because I overcame this, I used to very much be like this with food and with fitness, and, and other things as well. But that's the thinking that kept me from starting this podcast for five years. Like I was overwhelmed. done is better than perfect really is my motto now. And so I really had to just step into that and start doing this. but here's the thing this way of thinking this all or nothing thinking is actually not your fault. Your brain is literally wired to think in extremes because your brain craves certainty. Back in the day, as cave people, this was a survival mechanism. But now it's just causing unnecessary stress and it's making it hard for you to stay consistent because if it's not perfect, we don't, the brain is wanting to do it again. So let's dive into why this happens and what you can actually do instead. Your brain is constantly trying to categorize things into neat little boxes, good or bad on track off track because your brain loves clear, simple answers. It does not like uncertainty. And again, you know, back in cave, people times thus was useful. You had to quickly decide, is this safe? Is this dangerous friend or foe rabbit or lion? But in modern life, these extremes do not serve us in the same way. Instead, they show up in very unhelpful thoughts. Like I missed my workout, so I might as well skip for the rest of the week or I had dessert, my diet is ruined. I had one glass of wine. Like all bets are off might as well drink every day. And thinking these thoughts often enough, you start to believe that they are true. You start to believe that all or nothing is the way to go. Maybe you've never even questioned that thought. it's also not great for your confidence because you begin to feel like you can't do anything right. And you just keep waiting for the opportunity. there is research to show that starting on January 1st or starting on the first, or starting on Monday, does work for people because it is a nice clean, fresh start. But if you find that you're always doing this, like. It's probably a sign that it's not working. If you have to keep beginning. And this creates a ton of unnecessary stress when your brain is constantly reacting to something like it is a life or death situation. That's pumping out cortisol, right? The stress hormone. So over time that stress leads to burnout and makes you feel like giving up entirely. We need stress in that moment, right. If we're really deciding rabbit or lion, but when it's like,"I had dessert. My diet is ruined..." we don't need that kind of stress response for that. It's harmful. And this brings me to something called the approach avoidance conflict. It's when you want two things at once. Like you want to enjoy drinks with friends, but you also want to stay on track with your fitness goals. So you end up stuck in a tug of war feeling like you're feeling no matter what you choose. I sometimes like to call this like Saturday night brain and Sunday night brain. Right? Like your Saturday and brand is like, Ooh, like let's have another drink. And your Sunday night brain is like, oh my God. Like, why did I do that? I feel like garbage. Why do I always do this to myself? when you're probably more regulated and you're not caught up in the adrenaline of the moment. Here's the thing. All or nothing thinking tells you that if you can't do things perfectly, it's not worth doing at all. And that's a lie. You don't have to be perfect to make progress. At all. In fact, there's so much to be gained and learn from doing things imperfectly. If we executed perfectly, we would learn nothing. And you don't have to choose between enjoying your life and achieving your goals This is where the gray area comes in. And I used to really struggle with the gray area. I do still sometimes when it comes to mindset stuff, but I know how to deal with it in a nutrition and fitness context. Because you see sustainable progress happens in that messy, middle, not in the extremes. Not there's no sustainable progress in all or nothing. It's not always about being on or off. It's about learning how to stay in the middle. Drinking water on nights out, enjoying dessert or wine sometimes, but not all the time. Working out on vacation, And when you can embrace that messy middle you'll find it's a lot easier to stay consistent. Almost impossible to not stay consistent. Let me share a few real client stories, to show you what I mean. Danielle came to me saying I'm just not a breakfast person, which so many people say, and it's 99% of the time. Not true, but that is a podcast for another day. For years, she told me she would wake up Chuck two or three cups of coffee, maybe grab a protein bar, skip lunch. And then, by the time she got home at five, she was starving. She would either snack on crackers or her dinner became a binge Fest because she hadn't fueled her body properly throughout the day. I have probably had. Three dozen clients. Exactly like Danielle, who do this. This exact same thing who come to me saying, I don't know why I can't lose weight. I don't eat that much. Because they don't eat and they starve themselves all day and then they either eat all the crackers in the pantry while making dinner, or they have seven helpings of dinner and then some snacks and a glass of wine before bed. And not only that volume of food, but their metabolism is absolutely shot. So Danielle, I started to teach her to eat something, anything within the first couple hours of waking up, we'll often do this with clients, right? Like just eat something by 10:00 AM, 11:00 AM, 9:00 AM, whatever. Even if it is just a handful of nuts or a small smoothie, I will even take a piece of leftover pizza. This is literally better than nothing. And the goal is not to be perfect. It was just to feed her body regularly. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. But once she started doing this, it changed everything. I also had another client who had a really obsessive relationship with food and she was a caretaker. She would work late into the night and she wouldn't pack food. She had no way to get food. The only thing she could do was order pizza. So she would eat nothing. She wasn't eating properly during the day either. So she was basically eating nothing and then she would start the day eating nothing. And then by the time she finally ate like 24 hours later, it was just an all bets are off binge Fest. Another client. I had, I remember her telling me, like, she's so busy and she's like, I would go to Costco. And then by the time I'm done with the Costco shopping, I was so hungry. I had no choice, but to go to Wendy's. And this may not sound like all or nothing thinking, but it is. It's like I'm either going to be doing it perfectly and I've had lunch and I'm ready to go, or all bets are off. And I have to go to Wendy's and I happen to know the area of the city where this client was shopping and there's like, You know, OPA there is coffee shops. There is a save on like, if you can go to Costco, you can get a frickin, like prawn ring. there's always an option. But when we go into all or nothing thinking, we don't have creative thinking, we can't see the options. And that's what happens. And there's an education piece here as well of what to eat, but the mindset piece always comes first. Just being able to see the creative solution. And here's the big shift. You don't need permission from me or anyone to eat what you're craving but when you give yourself permission to eat without guilt, the whole dynamic changes. When you give yourself permission to recover, instead of pushing yourself to work out or do something you hate. The whole dynamic changes instead of seeing food as good or bad, you can enjoy it without shame. And that is how we stop the cycle of restriction and bingeing. And over time, those urges to overeat decrease. Really. and that kind of mindset and nutrition shift is life-changing. And it is also something that we teach inside of muscles and mindset. For new clients who are coming in, who haven't worked out consistently. I'm not just like, here's your five day split. Like I have, we have many clients come in who are new to working out or who are being extremely. Inconsistent. I'm like, let's start with a super simple approach, right? Let's start with. Underwhelming number of workouts. You currently don't workout at all. Cool. Let's give you one workout a week. I want you to nail that workout for the next two weeks, and then we'll talk about adding another one. Many clients find this underwhelming and many clients are skeptical. I remember I had. one of my most successful clients was running and doing at least one or two Les mills classes a day. And I gave her same number of days, but this one workout. And she was like, I don't think this is going to work. Like I need more than this. you probably don't need more. You probably just need to be more efficient. And add some recovery. So anyways, if you're new, start with one, just get so fricking good at doing that one workout every week. And when you can show yourself. That you can do it consistently. Then you add two. Don't join seventy-five hard. And then be surprised when you can't execute 75 hard. Don't be surprised when you know, you were gonna stop staying up and watching Netflix or snacking at night or drinking on January 1st, like expect yourself to be a completely different person when you had no lead up to it. it doesn't work. I don't want to overwhelm you with an hour in the gym every day. Nope. I want to coach you into the habit of fitness. One workout a week, two workouts a week, maybe it's five. That's fine. Have lots of clients come in, who are already working out and they just need it massaged and refined and more effective and efficient. And they need recovery. Which is something that we're going to talk about on the next episode next week. But here's how you kind of start applying this gray area to your own life. Next time you catch yourself in that all or nothing mindset. Pause. Take a breath. Ask yourself. What is the middle ground here? Maybe it is going out for drinks, but deciding to stop after two and Hey, maybe you have to try this one or two times and realize, you know, I just, can't, it's really hard for me. I haven't shown myself that I can do it. So maybe you do need a little bit of a harder boundary and no drinks for awhile. But don't first go to all or nothing. Maybe you skip Today's workout to sleep, but making a plan to move your body tomorrow. Maybe you enjoy a cookie, but you commit to stopping there instead of eating the whole box. The key is to keep showing up even when it's not perfect. And this is where mindfulness comes in consistently showing up for yourself requires moment to moment awareness. Hear me when I say this, because I know this to be true. I practice this too. I have an anxious personality. If you didn't know, so I can get into anxiety. I can get into checking my phone. I can get into going, onto my computer to work instead of just being in, doing nothing. They're parallel to food and fitness. You need moment to moment awareness and mindfulness so that you can be like, what am I doing right now. How does this feel right now? Because otherwise we get stuck in an anxiety spiral of like it's too late. I've gone too far. Right? This requires doing less, having more white space. Most people don't like to hear because they don't think it's possible. It's always possible. Meditating. Mindfulness nervous system regulation. Stopping without like a device or a screen. To actually check in with yourself. Those are the tools for consistency self-love and weight loss. Those are the tools. Sustainable progress is built in the gray area. Not in extremes. if you're ready to ditch an all or nothing mindset, here are three things that you can do today. Give yourself permission for whatever it is. Give yourself permission to eat when you're hungry, even if it's not perfect, don't stress over the choices, just feed your body and enjoy it. And if you're a person like I was, all the more reason for you to do this, all the more reason for you to swing and practice doing the scary thing, feeding your body and being okay with it, because otherwise it won't feel safe. And you'll stay stuck. Number two. Like I said, start small with your workouts. If you've been inconsistent, don't aim for perfection. There's no reason why you would be perfect at this. If you've never been perfect at this. I also have a high standard for myself, I train three times a week. I do my cardio, I do my yoga, I do my dance. But. That's reasonable for me in my life. And I like it that way and it works for me. at this point in my life, I would never beat myself up for skipping or missing a workout. Because I just trust myself to get back onto it. So try committing to a manageable number of workouts, one or two to start with and just stick with it, just do it over and over and over. And don't talk to them and try to change it up. Just do it. And when you do slip up, be kind to yourself, this is number three. Instead of throwing in the towel, ask yourself what is one small thing I can do today to get back on track? And if I'm honest, this might be a thought that you're practicing in your head because I've been this person. And I know that we got into this, like. I didn't blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Why do I always do this? Here I go again. I'm so mad at myself. Those thoughts are not helpful. So literally to get back on track, you probably have to choose a new thought. And remember, it's not about being perfect. It's about being consistent. And when you focus on consistency, the results you want will come without all the stress and guilt. If this resonates with you and you are tired of feeling like you're stuck in the all or nothing cycle, I want you to know that it's possible to break free from it. I see clients do it all the time. I did it myself and you're already on the way. So I really want you to embrace those small steps. Give yourself permission. That is a big one. And watch how the guilt and pressure start to fade permission. Removes pressure. As always thank you for tuning into the muscles and mindset revolution podcast. I'm so proud of you for taking these steps towards lasting change. If you are ready to learn more about how to create sustainable results in your fitness, body, and mindset, come join us inside muscles in mindset. You can apply via the link in the show notes. I love to help you achieve the lasting transformation that you deserve. I'll catch you next time. And remember, it's not about being perfect. It's about being consistent and compassionate with yourself. You've got this. If this episode helped. You, please share it on Instagram and tag me at annejonesfit I love seeing and hearing about what clicks for you and if you're ready to ditch all or nothing, mindset for good apply for muscles in mindset, it is designed to help you to build real strength, confidence, and lasting results without the extremes. Thanks for tuning in.