Why you should never start again on Monday

Maybe you recognize it, you feel very fat and bloated after the weekend and think… “I’ll start again on Monday” with healthy eating, no sweets, a diet, losing weight, or you name it. But if you ask me you should never, ever, start again on Monday!

Last night (Sunday evening) I was scrolling through my Facebook page and what caught my eye was a post from an acquaintance eating a cake, with the text:

“This is my last cake, starting tomorrow (Monday) I will start again with healthier eating and living to lose weight again”

So she decided not to eat cakes anymore and wanted to change course completely.

Well, on the one hand it’s great that she intends to do this. Eating and living healthier is never wrong, right? But on the other hand, I hate reading this so much and almost immediately feel “pity” for her.

Not that I think she’s pathetic. But because the “turn around”, “stop eating cakes” and that well-known “start again Monday” almost never works.

Yes, it will probably work for a while. Almost never, forever.

And I don’t think anyone wants something that works temporarily, but we all want something that we can keep going forever right?

In addition, so many women think that “no more sweets” will help.

But that also almost always backfires. The moment you are no longer allowed to eat something, it becomes all the more tempting and there is a good chance that sooner or later the cravings will take over. With snacking and binge eating as a result.

Well, and then we get that well-known all-or-nothing. So either you “start again on Monday” and go for it again. Or it doesn’t work anymore and let everything go. From one extreme to the other extreme.

And with every attempt that fails, your confidence drops!

“Just normal” eating then becomes increasingly difficult.

Maybe that’s something you recognize?

So, start again on Monday?

Please don’t ever do this again! And by that I don’t mean that you should never make the decision to change anything again. I certainly don’t want to stop you from eating and living healthier. But please do it another way!

Rather focus on:

1. Again and again small changes of your behavior instead of overturning the helm.

I think you know very well yourself that changing the helm completely is often not the solution. That’s too intense and before you know it you’re back in your old patterns.

What works much better is to apply small changes to your (eating) behavior over and over again. Small steps that hardly take any effort, but that make a huge difference week after week.

Before you know it you’ll handle food so differently, but in a way that’s permanent, because you’ve taken it step by step.

2. Find out what is preventing you from succeeding now

What makes you not eat healthy enough right now? Do you tell yourself it takes too much time? Don’t you make it a priority? Don’t you think you’re important enough? Do you only do it to lose weight and as soon as you fail, you don’t care anymore? Does it work, but as soon as you are stressed or overstimulated do you use food as coping?

These are some questions you could ask yourself to find out why you are unable to eat healthy or in a balanced way right now. Or why you can’t find your brakes with unhealthy things.

Only then can you bring about change from within. Tackling your pitfalls or limiting beliefs. A different mindset. Other patterns. Much more effective than just “from now on I will eat healthier again”.

3. Find a way of eating and handling food that can keep you full forever.

“No more eating cakes” is of course not a long-term strategy. A diet, an eating schedule, eating low in carbohydrates, counting calories, etc. are of course also not strategies that you can keep up forever. Not even wanting to keep it up!

And now I hear some of you thinking:

“Yes, but I want this first to lose weight and only then can I focus on something that I can maintain forever”.

Well, dear, you can try that. There’s a good chance that either it won’t work out and your self-confidence has plummeted a few more levels. Or there is a good chance that you will succeed for a while, but you will quickly fall back into old patterns if you do not tackle the basics!

So believe me, you will have so much more to start right now. Because why wait, if you can already have more peace and a more effortless eating pattern?!

However?!

Do you want to know my 5 secrets for more peace of mind around food and more effortless “normal” eating?

Then sign up for my free master class. So that you can log in from home on October 11 or 12 and take some time for yourself to get a way of dealing with food that you can keep up forever!

Not a quick fix, but something that will really help you.

Because deep down you don’t want to “stop eating cakes”. Deep down you just want to eat normally, not experience a struggle and feel good in your body. However?

Do you think now, YES you get it, that’s what I want! Then you just have to attend this masterclass.

Register here for a while and then I’d love to see you on October 11 or 12 for the 5 secrets for more peace around food, less binge eating and an effortlessly normal eating pattern.

Love, Milo