How To Get Back On Track With Exercise and Nutrition When You Fall Off The Wagon

Getting fit, losing fat, and gaining muscle are simple. It’s a completely linear process. If you tracked your progress on a graph it would be a perfectly straight line headed from the bottom left to the top right with no deviations. One day you’d decide to reach your goal and eventually you would get there with zero issues.

Annnnnnd cut!

THAT was the Hollywood movie version of what it looks like to get healthy.

Let’s get real here.

We’re human.

We’re busy.

We get sick.

We get distracted.

We go on vacation.

We get off track.

Other people demand our attention.

There’s a constant stream of things in life that can easily thwart our plans for progress. Inevitably ALL of us take a couple steps back somewhere in our journey. It’s just part of the process, and that’s ok. Blakley and I did a photoshoot at the beginning of June. We wanted to look our best so we were super dialed in on our goal. We gave ourselves almost 2 months to get ready, we even hired a coach to help us and hold us accountable along the way. You would think that I could stay 100% focused and make constant progress for 2 months, right? Wrong!

Only 2 weeks in we went to a party and I way overdid it on snacks and fatty foods. I busted my calories by a LONG shot and didn’t do a whole lot better the next day. My weight went up a couple pounds. I got back on track and stayed dialed in for a couple more weeks. A weekend out of town with friends and I fell victim to lack of will-power again. I lost some more progress, but quickly got back on track. I stayed on point for a few more weeks and made really good progress. We had some friends in town for 2 days, went out for some big meals and drinks and lost track of my intake. I lost some of that progress I made in the previous 3 weeks, but I pulled in the reins once again for the last couple weeks.

I ended up losing about 5.5-lbs during the process, but as you can see it wasn’t a linear process. Life happened. I got off track and didn’t do everything perfectly. So what? I didn’t throw in the towel and give up. I didn’t let a slip up become an excuse to not continue or not try. Am I superhuman? Um no. I just know that the thing that separates successful people is the fact that they don’t give up when they hit a bump in the road or even drive off of it completely.

So what should you do if you need a reset or to get back on track?

The best advice I can give you is to start small.

I think one of the things that makes people not be able to stick with whatever they are doing is that they start too aggressively.

If you decided to start working out and commit to going 5x per week that is an aggressive goal if you’re starting from scratch.

You might start out hot and heavy, hitting the gym 5 times the first week. Then you oversleep one morning the next week and only make it 4 times. The next week you both oversleep once and just plain ol’ don’t feel like going once. You might feel a little defeated at this point. The third week you’re swamped at work and only make it to the gym twice. You’re approaching depression level from straying so far from your goal. You feel defeated and like you’ve failed so you don’t even bother to try and go the next week.

You’re not a bad person if this cycle has played out once or ten times in your life. You just set really aggressive goals that are tough to maintain before you really have a chance to build good habits and get some results that might have encouraged you to keep going.

Here’s an approach that we’ve had much better success with.

Start small.

Start sustainable.

Get a victory or two.

Get hooked on the results & the great feelings you’re getting.

THEN, add in a little more until THAT is your new normal. Then add a little more. A little more weight, a little more variety and a little more often. This method WORKS whether you’re just starting out or if you just had a setback. Remember, the workout program that works best is the one that you can stick with long term.

Let’s flip over to the nutrition side.

The same thing often happens for the same reason. We set really aggressive goals that are nearly impossible for someone just starting out to maintain. This can look like restricting calories drastically or attempting to go cold turkey on things like sugar, carbohydrates and alcohol.

Just about anything can be enjoyed in moderation and large scale elimination and restriction at the onset of a nutrition program usually results in the same thing that happens with super aggressive workout plans. We slip up a few times until we ultimately get disheartened and quit before we got any lasting results.

Take a smarter approach.

Think about the habits that are holding you back and make substitutions that lead you in the right direction.

If you’re eating fast food 3 meals a week let’s knock it down to once per week until that’s a no-brainer for you. Then let’s move on to another habit. This strategy works time and time again and the great thing is that the changes tend to STICK because you get a win, you get results and you can build on each success in a sustainable way. Not only are you less likely to “fall off”, you’re more likely to having lasting results because you’ve changed your habits which leads to long term consistency.

We cannot emphasize this enough:

Going on a super strict diet that makes you lose 20-lbs in 30 days, only to have you gain it all back plus 10 more when you go off the diet has actually harmed you.

Read more about that in THIS post about fat loss frustration.

If you’re making steady progress in a sustainable way and still slip up for a weekend, a week or longer you can probably guess what our advice is. JUST START BACK! It doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to look a certain way. Look at what your original goals were and where you were succeeding. Start back the way you started in the first place. Baby steps that were working. It doesn’t matter if you gained a few pounds while things were derailed, you can make it up if you don’t quit.

That’s the difference maker.

You don’t quit.

At the risk of sounding like a beating drum here… Consistency is the key.

Eat too much of the wrong things consistently and you’ll likely gain fat, become obese and end up with chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease and cancer.

Eat well, in the right amounts consistently and you’ll be headed down the road toward feeling energetic and healthy.

Exercise consistently for a long period of time and you’ll help yourself control chronic disease and fatigue.

Sit on the couch consistently and….well, you get it.

You’re the sum of what you do consistently so start, but start small and when your progress chart takes a dip, don’t give up.

Keep the big picture in mind and get back at it.