Reasons For Self-Sabotage
Let’s face it. For most of us gals out there, the reason we often find ourselves *this far* from achieving our dream body is not because we don’t know how to eat well or how to move our bodies. I mean sure, I’m all for understanding exactly how to eat well for maximum results.
In my Look Great Naked Bootcamp, for example, which closes today for registrations btw (!), I shake things up foodwise a LOT. We step outside the realms of ‘everyday clean’ eating and work with some pretty structured nutrition cycling in order to get max results in a short time. I also distinguish between the best types of training for rapid fat loss.
And yet –
And yet, if you forced me to answer why I believe most women don’t have the body they want, I would not say it’s because they haven’t yet used nutrition cycling or don’t do the right sort of sculpting workouts or circuits or HIIT cardio.
Because to be honest I think that if you simply picked a (clean) eating approach and were able to stick with it really darn consistently you’d get results. It might take longer than by using more strategic methods such as the ones I employ, but so long as you stuck with it? And especially if you added consistent daily movement?
You’d find yourself in the body you want a helluva lot
sooner than if you swung between periods of eating really
really well but yet binging or otherwise
self-sabotaging in between.
So the reason, the real reason most women struggle for their entire lives to get the body they want and barely maintain it even if they do get there, is because, to be quite frank, they have major head issues. Yep, I’m talking to you.
Don’t worry – me too ? Yes, still on occasion.
And the way those head issues often manifest themselves is that for each ‘good’ day or meal there eventually occurs a day or meal of self-sabotage.
And sometimes, that one meal or day off track sweeps you so far into the land of remorse and ‘well there’s no point now anyway’, that it becomes 2 days, a week, or perhaps even weeks on end in which you keep telling yourself you’ll get back into it.
Tomorrow.
Self-Sabotage. The Guilt. The Inability to Stop. And the Why.
More times than you can possibly imagine, I’ve asked myself why I self-sabotage.
You see, I still find myself doing it sometimes. Wanna know a secret?
The morning of my recent bikini photo-shoot – in fact an hour before we left to go to the studio – I was eating chocolate.
Not much. And maybe it’s not a big deal at all. Hey – a row of dark chocolate can’t make much difference, right? But I also ate some the day before. And the day before that. Okay, I ate it every single day in the final week leading up to my shoot. In and around an otherwise ‘perfect’ diet and fairly stringent exercise plan.
In the end, I was more than happy with my shots. But I was also annoyed at myself. Not so much for not being leaner still; more because ‘wtf’. Right? I mean WHY – why would I do that? That’s what bothered me.
And sure, these days my self-sabotage is nothing like the days of mindlessly binge eating block after block of cheap chocolate and then shoving my fingers down my throat. So perhaps I should be happy with how far I’ve come.
But I’ll be honest – I’m not. I mean, I am – I am happy with where I’m at physically and with how I treat my body mostly, but I find it frustrating that as soon as I get really close to any sort of life or physical ‘breakthroughs’ or else have held them for a while, I have an almost insatiable desire to want to do something to pull myself off track.
Have you ever noticed the same thing in your own life; your own eating habits?
I’ve done a fair bit (a lot!) of journaling around this, and here is what I’ve come up with. I think you might find it useful. These are some of the key reasons we self-sabotage. I put an asterisk next to the 2 that are most relevant for me.
- Escapism
- Feeling overwhelmed
- Rebellion*
- Beating stress
- Feeling unworthy, like you don’t deserve to be ‘that girl’
- Pleasure/joy*
- A sense of despair
For me, when I self-sabotage with chocolate, I’m rebelling against being … responsible. But the truth of course is that really I’m only rebelling against truly creating my dream body and life. So why rebel?
Well – it’s tiring being responsible. Feeling that I have to live up to the standards in business and life that I’ve set for myself. There’s always something else to do and it makes me want to say ‘f*ck you (whoever you is!) – I WILL do things on my terms’.
It’s my way of pushing back when I feel that I’m not in control of how I’m running my life.
The other thing is – pleasure. I spent years living life by a set of rules I thought I had to live by. In many ways, escaping with chocolate was the only time I felt true pleasure or joy. Sometimes still, I have to remind myself that my life is 100% on my terms now.
Everything I do or do not do is a choice, and always has been of course. I need to acknowledge that more.
And whilst eating chocolate can be pleasurable it’s also tinged with immediate regret and guilt. Sometimes I think I thrive on the guilt! The sense of getting away with it, a desire to break the rules. Again – rebellion.
But here’s the thing.
The thing is, it doesn’t matter why you do what you do.
What matters is – is it really serving you?
Yes, in some ways it does serve me to rebel against a life too full of rules – even and perhaps especially if I created those rules for myself. But is it ultimately of more benefit to me to sabotage my health and body goals as a way of pushing back when life is too tightly wound, or would it be better to figure out why I self-sabotage (hence this blog post!) and acknowledge that perhaps I can actually deal with that underlying need in a more positive way?
Such as journaling about it when I feel tightly bound by life.
Or saying ‘no’ to another idea or project, even if it’s a good one.
Having a day where I do absolutely nothing and speak to no-one.
Having more tech-free time.
Or simply coming back to my big why for my life or at the very least for my body – allowing my deep body goals to be more powerful than my supposed need to self-sabotage.
How about you?
How about you beautiful?
When you consider the reasons you self-sabotage, even if you have just a sense of the ‘why’ behind your actions, is it worth continuing with that pattern? Are you getting enough out of it to make it worth putting your dream body on hold?
Self-sabotage is not about will-power.
It’s not something to discipline yourself out of.
It’s something to understand.
And either it is serving you in a way that is worth putting your (perhaps) bigger and more important body goals on hold, or it’s not.
Which is it?
Figuring Yourself Out – And How I Can Help
The best way to figure this sort of stuff out is to journal it out. Ask and answer questions of yourself. Let your mind and emotions detox. Purge the emotional craziness.
If you think you’d benefit from something more structured for overcoming self-sabotage and learning how to stay on track for life, I can help.
In The Look Great Naked Bootcamp I take you through a series of mindset and inner work developed based on learning how to deal with and overcome my own crazy head stuff.
Yes, I am still a work in progress – as we all are.
But I’ve beat binge eating. Bulimia. I know my ‘why’ and I understand my reasons for going off track. I can help you to create the mindset you need for self-love and follow through.
In fact, the mindset and inner work I do with my Look Great Naked Bootcamp Beauties has become the most popular part of the program, and the reason so many bootcamp ‘alumni’ have come back for more in Round 2.
If you’ve been thinking about joining us, today is the day to decide. The bootcamp has begun (as of this morning!) and so today is the very final day for registrations.
And whether it’s for you or not, always always remember –
Life is Now. Press Play.
PS I know what it’s like to feel unsure about committing to something online. How do you know it will be worth it? How do you know it’s ‘for real’? All I can say is this –
I held off on creating this program for months until I knew it as exactly what you both wanted and needed. I’ve been burnt before online and there was no way I was going to put something out there without being so damn proud of its content and the results it would get. The reason my Look Great Naked Bootcamp is so successful and creates such incredible results in 6 weeks is because I get you doing the inner work as well as guide you through every single step of how to eat and train.
I absolutely promise you that if you join us, you will be so so glad you did.
Remember – today is the final day. Say yes to changing your body and your life for good over here.
Enter your name and email below for instant access!
Home Page Right 3
