We all know the situation.  You’ve been making some progress, doing well, losing some fat and getting fitter. You may even be impressing yourself and gaining some confidence in your ability to achieve killer abs.  And then… something happens, the wheels fall off and you wake up surrounded by candy bar wrappers and enveloped by a black cloud of self disgust. We shall refer to this event as an ‘incident’.  Yes, I do write from experience!

Here are some pointers for getting up and moving on:

1. REALITY CHECK.  Focus on the long-term, expansive view. In a lifetime of being fit and healthy, a few bad days is just not a big deal.  Keep your perspective.  It will take less than a week to start feeling kick-ass again. 
2. When you do have an ‘incident’ step back and unemotionally observe what happened.  You are going to LEARN SOMETHING from this.  What happened exactly?  If you keep a journal, it’s worth looking back and checking the journal data for clues.  Perhaps you had been hungry and dieting too strictly.  Tired?  Do you need to learn to manage your stress better?  Were you listening to self-defeating ‘fat’ thoughts?  There will be real reasons for your lapse and it’s unlikely that the incident represents a lack of willpower.
3. Remember that it’s actually quite NORMAL to have setbacks on the way to any goal and fatloss is never linear (if only!).  I know of a figure competitor that ate half of her sons birthday cake a week before her competition. If it can happen to her, a person that lives constantly in a state of extreme self-discipline, then it can happen to anyone.  Even people with years of healthy eating behind them can have days that they regret.  Even naturally skinny people overeat sometimes – but do they think about it all night?  No….  Expecting perfection is unrealistic.  You are not a saint or a superhero (if you are, then this article may not be relevant to you).
4. Don’t tell yourself that you will ‘start again tomorrow’ or ‘make up for it’.  That encourages disordered thinking and, if you have started the day badly then you could be encouraged to do even more damage because today you are ‘off’ and tomorrow you plan to start being perfect.  Just ease back to your normal, healthy routine and let your body come back to balance.  Don’t cut back on calories in order to undo the damage more quickly – this can backfire and spin you into another ‘incident’.
5. Your mind is your biggest enemy and your greatest asset.  After an ‘incident’ you will probably find that your inner critic has found a megaphone and is bombarding you with defeatist thoughts.  You need to silence that negative stream with positive action.  What happened, happened but it is your interpretation or EMOTIONAL CHARGE that you attach to the events that will determine how you come out of it and how quickly.  See you on the other side!