Stop Waiting For The Perfect Time!: Why It's Okay To Start Over , But You Need to START!

Most people think they need the “perfect time” to finally get consistent with their nutrition and fitness. In this episode of Fuel Your Finish, Registered Dietitian and 4x Boston Marathoner Lisa Nelson breaks down why that mindset is exactly what’s holding you back—and what to do instead.

Lisa shares personal insight on how even she caught herself waiting for the “right time” to restart her podcast, and how that same pattern shows up in nutrition, training, and everyday life. She dives into why perfection isn’t required for progress, how small setbacks can spiral into lost time, and why shortening your “comeback time” is the real key to success.

If you’ve ever told yourself “I’ll start Monday” or “I’ll wait until things calm down,” this episode will challenge that thinking and give you a practical way to move forward—right now.

You’ll learn:

•  Why waiting for the “perfect time” is keeping you stuck 
•  How all-or-nothing thinking slows your progress 
•  The concept of “shortening your comeback time” (and why it matters) 
•  How to navigate real life—parties, stress, travel—without falling off track 
•  Why your goals need to be realistic, flexible, and built for your life 
•  Simple ways to plan ahead so you stay consistent (even when life is busy) 

Key Moments / Chapters:

00:00 – Welcome & Episode Overview
 00:30 – Why the “Perfect Time” Doesn’t Exist
 01:30 – Personal Story: Waiting to Restart the Podcast
 02:30 – Real Life Always Gets in the Way (and That’s Normal)
 04:00 – The Problem with Rigid, All-or-Nothing Goals
 06:00 – Real Example: Falling Off Track & Bouncing Back
 08:00 – Why Starting Immediately Matters More Than Starting Perfectly
 10:00 – The Cost of Waiting (and Losing Progress Over Time)
 12:00 – Shortening Your Comeback Time
 14:00 – How to Set Realistic, Actionable Goals
 16:00 – Planning Ahead for Busy Seasons & Staying Consistent

Resources & Links:

🌐 Transform Nutrition: https://transformnutrition.fit/

💬 Book a FREE Strategy Session: https://l.bttr.to/f57AT

🏃‍♀️ Fueling for Runners: Free Runner Fueling Guide

Nutrition Programs: Work With Me

Keywords / Tags:

consistency, nutrition habits, fitness mindset, all-or-nothing thinking, habit building, time management, runner nutrition, fueling for performance, sustainable weight loss, healthy lifestyle, goal setting, Fuel Your Finish, Lisa Nelson, Boston Marathoner, nutrition coaching

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Hello, hello. Welcome to Feel Your Finished Podcast. This is host Lisa Nelson, talking on all things habits, wellness, nutrition, and just getting it done. So today I want to talk about stopping waiting for the perfect time. I see this all of the time, and you know what? I don't struggle with this in my nutrition and fitness, but I struggle with this in other areas. It's something that we all struggle with. It's totally normal, but it is something that we need to just kick to the curb, okay? If you have a goal that if you that you have been wanting to achieve with your nutrition and wellness, um I will tell you, you are never gonna have the perfect time. The perfect time will never come. So stop waiting for it to be the same as it was in your 30s or in your 20s or in college or whenever it was that everything aligned perfectly and you crushed the goal. Because the truth is things weren't perfect then. You just happened to have committed to this, and probably there's a part of you that remembers how hard it was and is kind of like silently um pushing you the other direction and making you um stop and wait until the perfect time. Um, and I am actually uh it's been a little break with the podcast because I realized I was on a call with some other um business owners that I network with and realized that I have been waiting for the perfect time to get on here and do a podcast. I have been trying to do this perfectly, and you know what? Um that is just not the way to get anything done. So I decided that I'm going to jump back on here and I am gonna bring you some motivation to get in there and accomplish your nutrition and wellness goals, and you might even find some motivation for other parts of life as well. So when we talk specifically about waiting for the perfect time to do our goals with nutrition, with fitness, maybe we're waiting for the perfect time to start running again or start hitting the gym again. Maybe we're waiting for the perfect time to start eating right, and maybe every time we start eating right again, something comes up. We have a birthday party, we have um a holiday. Um, it's it's April here in New Orleans to date this episode, and we just finished up with Mardi Gras a couple months ago. Where does the time go? Um, and now um a lot of people are already finished with spring break, and I know wherever you're listening from, it's always something, right? And we're gonna start looking at summer break, and then we're gonna start looking at you know lots of travel and vacations for people. Um and right now, as we start to look at the end of the school year, a lot of people have um graduations and different parties coming up and trips, so it's always another thing to derail you. And really, what I see um and will stand so firm on is that most people want their they they set their goals, I'm not gonna say too hard or too high, but when it comes to nutrition, we make it too rigid, it doesn't need to be that rigid, and we also we even whatever goal we set, we don't have to meet it perfectly, we just have to make movement, okay? And so with anything that we're striving at doing better in life, it's gonna be three steps forward and two steps back because that's just humanness. Um things come up, and you know, when it comes to nutrition specifically or getting your workouts in, like things come up, you should be consistent and you should commit to it. I'm not coddling you here, but you know, I fall off track. Um, the other night I had a birthday party for my daughter, and um I I think underground, under you know, under everything, I was really uh stressed about having 10 little girls in my house until 10 p.m. Um, and that was really creating a little bit of um a little bit of unrest for me, and I ended up um overdoing it on some brownies and stuff like that, just with the stress, right? We all do that sometimes. And what I realized is the next day I just didn't feel great, you know, after eating that way. I will say my run felt pretty good that night, all things considered, because I did get some good carbs in, but still not the best um options for me. Um, but what I really realized that next morning was just that um, as I always do, I always start over right away. I never wait. I never say, okay, well, I'm just gonna give it the weekend and just like trash my body through the weekend. And I really think that's what sets apart um success from honestly failure with our nutrition and fitness goals, is if we're waiting for the perfect time to get started again, it's not gonna come. Um, you know, I could have waited until Monday and then um something would have come up today. Um, I didn't get quite all the groceries in the house that I wanted to, so well, I'll wait and start next Monday. Um, that's not gonna get me any closer to my goals. That's not gonna get you any closer to your goals. Waiting until after all of these things pass with um the end of the school year and all the graduations and trips and things, you're going to be further. So, like let's say your starting point is here, okay, and you're um, you know, if you get started now by the end of like let's say if there was if everything was perfect, you could be here in, you know, let's call it two months, okay? But because there's a lot going on, you know, maybe you make it to here, but you still make it forward. Whereas if you say, Well, I'm gonna start um I'm gonna start in six weeks when everything calms down, well, you know what? You're not gonna be starting from this place anymore. Now you're gonna be starting back here. You just like lost yourself even more time because most people like if we're not working on our goals, if we're not working on our nutrition, our health, our fitness, we're really probably moving backwards. We're putting on a few more pounds, um, we're increasing our cholesterol a little more, our A1C a little more, we're um getting a little less fit every time we put that off. Whereas if we just start today, even if we don't do it perfectly, worst case scenario, we're still at the same parting starting point we're maintaining. Um, but most likely case scenario, we're somewhere here forward, like we've moved forward by some amount. And so I think it's really important to approach things realistically and make sure that you have a plan that makes sense for your life and what you have going on. Um, and if you're waiting to just do it perfectly, you're you're never gonna start. Um, and if you quit, as soon as you don't do it perfectly, you're never gonna have success. So, what you need to do is like I mentioned this story about myself this weekend, is Saturday morning, you know, I sat down and I thought, well, geez, I was really stressed out about that um birthday party thing, and I didn't even realize it, and I kind of went off the rails. And I kind of thought through, like, well, what could I have done a little differently? I could have maybe planned a little bit more, like what I would eat, you know, during the day so that I didn't end up, you know, kind of starving by six o'clock, you know what I mean? I could have had a little bit more of a plan for myself to help me stay on track, you know. Regardless, um, we're gonna fall off track sometimes, and the important thing is getting going again. So even if next time we fall off of our goals again, we probably fall off a little less. But either way, the most important thing isn't whether or not we fall off our goal. The most important thing is that we're starting again and we're not wasting time. So it's about shortening your comeback time and deciding, okay, I fell off a little bit, I'm gonna keep going. Um, and that's where we get three steps forward, maybe two steps back, but we're still over time, we're moving forward instead of staying the same or moving backwards, okay? Um, and it's really just about doing it, and um, even if you're not doing perfectly. And so another little thing that I want to kind of bring to you today is think about um as you set your goals, if you're just you know restarting or if you're just you know starting from scratch, set your goals as things that are clear, actionable, and time-bound. Okay, so you want to think about um, for example, um, I use the example a lot of when I started my fitness journey um 20 years ago. I said, okay, I want to run four days a week most of the time, or I want to run four days a week no matter what, and I want to eat healthy most of the time. And so what that meant for me was like eating healthy throughout the day and then making room for dessert and running for 30 minutes four times a week, no matter what happened, and that was a goal that made sense for my life. That might not be the goal for you that makes sense for your life, but think about like can you actually go to the gym four times a week, or is it, you know, what can you follow through on? And I'm not coddling you, I'm not saying to um set your goal really low, but make sure you can achieve it. Make sure your life is set up so that you can achieve it. And if you really want to achieve it, also make sure you go in and you schedule that in. Make sure you schedule in your workouts. When are you gonna do that? And take a few intentional minutes to plan ahead what you're going to eat, okay? Um, if eating healthy is the goal. And whatever your goal, make sure you schedule it and make sure you think through how are you actually gonna achieve it and what does that look like, even with the chaos coming up, you know, if you have a busy, you know, season coming up. Um, think about, you know, plan ahead and think about how you're gonna eat healthy, how you're gonna work out well on these trips, or whether that's gonna be a short break for you, and then plan ahead how you're gonna get right back on as soon as that's over. Um, and that I think is super important. So stop waiting for the perfect time and set some goals and get going today. If you need support, as always, I am here. Um, and if you are a runner and you would like more information on fueling your run, um, you can reach out or check the links in here for specific information on fueling your run or on my nutrition programs. Have a wonderful day and start crushing it and keep crushing it.