Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: RSS

There’s a gent at my gym who’s lost around 8 kilo’s in 2 weeks.

He’s been on what I would deem a very extreme diet. It involves around 500 calories, injections to suppress his appetite and ZERO exercise.

Although he’s happy with his results… the approach he’s chosen is 100%, without a doubt NOT the approach I would ever recommend to any of my clients. In today’s show: What Is TOO Extreme?

When you’re considering any big change to your eating and exercising I really only have 2 key considerations:

One: Is It Sustainable?

Extreme is so subjective. Does it FEEL too extreme to you?

Whether your approach to eating and exercising is too extreme for you to sustain, well only YOU know.

Here are 3 questions to ask yourself though:

Q1. Are you hating your every meal? Always hungry? Feeling Deprived?

The way I now eat would sound extreme to some people. It would’ve sounded extreme to me 10-15 years ago too. However the reason it works for me is that I worked my way up to it one upgrade at a time and I honestly LOVE every single meal I eat.

I’m never hungry and I very rarely feel restricted or deprived.

To put it in perspective I feel restricted or deprived about a billion times less often than when I ate processed crap-o-la 6 meals a day.

Q2. Is the amount of exercise you need to do taking away from time spent doing other things that are really important to you? Do you feel like you’re struggling to stay afloat maintaining this regime?

If you have to give up breakfast with the kids and evening story-time with the kids… or if you never have the energy to make your regular weekly catch up with your closest friends any more… or if you can’t justify time away from the torturous treadmill to maintain the garden – or golf – or bridge (!) OR whatever it is for you that you LOVE, that helps you feel happy, relaxed and grateful… then that’s a sure sign that long term it’s not sustainable.

Q3. Is there wriggle-room in your routine?

By wriggle-room, I mean: Can you eat a meal out? Like impromptu – at breakfast, lunch or dinner – if out-of-the blue you end up at a restaurant not of your choosing are you ably to order a meal that meets your eating requirements?

Equally, do you know how to adjust your workout to an at home routine or a more intense 15 minutes instead of your planned 60 or even is if ok to skip the very odd day or perhaps just go for a walk instead?

Extreme to me is when it all falls apart if there is any little change to your routine. Change will happen. You can’t always have control over your schedule and circumstances to the degree you would love control and that needs to be ok.

Two: If It’s Just A Short Term Solution, What Habits Do You Come Out The Other Side With?

This is something I see smart people fall for time and time again.

It’s not about what you force your body through short term. I hate that mindset. And Yes I chose Hate with volition… it really works me up! A restriction based approach will NEVER work long term. 

I don’t like the short term solution however I know some people find it really motivating to get some rapid fire results and that compels them to continue on after their short burst of super extreme with more sustainable habits.

Here are 3 questions to consider:

Q1. Does the short term solution have a positive or negative effect on your already established good habits?

So for example the gent I mentioned at the top of todays show has been seeing a colleague of mine twice a week for personal training. It was a really hard habit for him to establish as he works long, late hours in hospitality and he hates the gym.

Getting up at stupid o’clock for personal training after not enough sleep and too many beers didn’t come easily.

Regardless, he created the habit and now he almost enjoys it.

However, this extreme approach he’s taking demands he doesn’t exercise at all for 3 weeks. I think that’s a risky undertaking. He’s messing with a really good habit that was really hard to make.

Q2. Have you taken steps to implement sustainable good habits once you come out the other side of extreme?

I’m firmly of the belief that you need a plan for your great sustainable habits to continue with once you’re done and dusted with all the extreme rubbish. If you don’t, then you run the very real risk of congratulating your massive-extreme-effort with a result-and-self-belief-destroying-bad-habit-binge-fest.

I know, I’m hating on extreme – however I just find it super frustrating to see people suffer all the unnecessary restriction. The pain. The UN-fun …and then throw their results away in 1/4 of the time it took to achieve them.

It’s worse than pointless.

Q3. What can you learn from past experiences with the extreme approach? Or put another way: 6 months afterExtreme are you going to be in a better place?

If it sounds like I’m preaching please know that I’m coming from a place of enduring many self inflicted stupid mistakes…and I’m the consistency Queen, stubborn to my detriment – so I’ve previously chosen extreme and then followed it for an extreme period of time.

Like ZERO chocolate – actually pretty much ZERO FAT, for 2 years because I thought it gave me pimples.

Or 20+ egg whites a day because… well, I don’t even know Why!

My point is I’ve done stupid-extreme and when I look back: it’s never the solution. I always came out the other side searching for a more balanced, sustainable approach.

Which is exactly what I’m hoping for, for YOU.

For todays quote I’ll hand over to Warren Buffett: “Chains of habit are too light to be felt until they are too heavy to be broken.”

To get actionable today: Are you thinking of something in which perhaps you’re a little extreme?? Those 2 key considerations again:

One: Is It Sustainable?

Two: If It’s Just A Short Term Solution, What Habits Do You Come Out The Other Side With?

If you’re not sure I’m happy to help… if I can. Just touch base in the comments below. That’s it for me today – I’m off to tuck in to a lil vodka and a super yumbo dinner I love!

I hope you can join me for the Wednesday Weigh-in show. I’m covering a topic that’s been on my mind for a while… I’m calling it: Chasing Calm.

If you liked this you’ll also like: Deliberately Addictive Craving Causing Food: 3 Myths.

If you’re yet to share the Healthification love – just click here to zip over to iTunes and leave an honest rating and review. It’d help me out big time. With gratitude, Kate.