Perfectionism is getting in the way of your goals

I am constantly preaching to people about sleep, and yet, I’m lucky if I have one night out of 7 where I sleep a full 8 hours.

I am constantly encouraging people to adopt stress management techniques or, where possible, reduce their allostatic burden, and yet I still feel a sense of guilt when the 3-5 hours I might have between clients in a 13-hour workday aren’t used ‘productively’.

I talk about the importance of fibre and micronutrients, yet some of my days of eating look like toast for breakfast, cereal for lunch, and some leftover veggie sausages with tomato sauce squirted on a Tupperware lid for dinner.

I often get fewer than 5000 steps per day.

I take rest days when I can’t be bothered or when I’m too tired to go to the gym, even though I know that, realistically, I could probably muster a 20-minute strength circuit if I made the effort.

My partner and I get takeaways once a week and go to restaurants at least once, if not twice, on the weekend, where I won’t say no to a glass of wine (DINK life, I guess).

I’ll eat something if it looks tasty and it’s in front of me, even if I’m not particularly hungry, and I often rely on sugary snacks when I crash between 1-3 pm to get me through the rest of the day, when I’d much rather be taking a nap.

Am I falling apart? Am I letting myself backslide into terrible habits? Am I, as some may assume, not trying hard enough?

The old me would have thought so.

Because actually, I’ve always been like this.

I just used to be a lot more ashamed of it.

I think (though it might not seem that way) that I have some perfectionist tendencies.

Interestingly, for much of my life, those very tendencies have manifested as various forms of laziness.

Because if I wasn’t going to be immediately good at something, I’d just avoid it completely.

I adopted a default ‘all-or-nothing’ mentality towards lots of things. Studying, for example, was something that I’d procrastinate and delay right up until the week (or the night) before an exam or assignment was due, and then I’d cram like crazy all night.

I still struggle with mental blocks around certain things. I keep saying I’d love to get back into drawing and painting (which I used to be good at), but because I feel out of practice, I don’t want to confront my own inadequacy.

I’ll be honest. The reason I studied nutrition at university was that I wanted to learn how I could eat healthier and secure my position as ‘better than everyone else’ because of my own superior habits.

I believed that if I knew what the ultimate eating pattern looked like, I would simply follow that for the rest of my life.

Unfortunately, my nutrition degree was structured in this way:

Year 1: anatomy papers, chemistry papers, statistics papers, biology papers

Year 2: more anatomy, metabolic biochemistry, food chemistry, public health, more stuff where I’m in a lab (why am I in a lab coat all the bloody time, I don’t want to be here)

Year 3: actual nutrition science, except it’s about studying population data and correlating health outcomes to overall eating patterns (booring)

Nutrition degrees, as it turns out, are not about memorising calorie counts or analysing ‘what I eat in a day’ videos.

I also struggled with some binge-eating during university, which was incredibly frustrating because even though I was never explicitly taught what a ‘perfect’ day of eating looks like, I knew that it wouldn’t involve a wee 3 pm binge. I didn’t want to be a nutritionist who would compulsively shovel down a pack of biscuits while sitting in the car. How embarrassing.

When I started personal training, I thought that the pressure to be a ‘role model’ for my clients would force me into better habits.

And it did - temporarily.

I would train diligently, track macros, eat ‘clean’ (whatever that meant to me at the time, ugh), and I seemed to look the part.

But I still couldn’t keep it up. Not for very long anyway. I’d always fall off eventually, into binge-eating or comfort eating, eating too much or barely eating enough.

That didn’t feel very good. I felt like an imposter, a terrible role model, and a bit gross.

I could never understand how these young women, whom I’d idolise on social media, wearing matching Lululemon and holding green juices, could do it day in and day out. Walking 10,000 steps a day, only ever eating salads and drinking smoothies. Were they really doing that all the time? Judging by their inspirational ‘before and afters,’ I supposed they were. Was I the only one hopelessly trying and failing?

what I used to believe health looked like

I’d examine my bloated belly and feel the stodge of whatever junk food I’d recently eaten contributing to the swell, the pit, the heaviness. Hoping that the disgust I’d feel towards my body at a given moment would spur me on, give me the wake-up call I needed. But I’d only ever end up repeating the cycle.

Be really, REALLY, fucking strict. No sugar. No junk food. Exercise daily, or most days. Post about it on social media. Get locked in.

Then, have a meltdown because literally anything that knocks you slightly out of routine completely throws you off. Staying late at work. Forgetting your meal prep. Getting sick. Someone’s birthday - ugh - WHY do we have to go to a restaurant again!?

Self-soothe. Food is the most appealing option. Only sugar will do, or something rich in fat and carbohydrates. Who cares about the calories? It’s just one day. It’s all about balance anyway.

One day of overeating, the next day feeling disgusting. Stick to the meal plan, maybe eat a bit less for damage control, eventually give in again. The feeling of fullness is calling you. Nothing seems more appealing than the idea of being so deliciously full and satisfied. Oh, what the hell, what’s another day? Just avoid the scales for now until you’re back in routine.

Struggle to find the willpower. Keep self-flagellating. Keep feeling disgusted. Wait until it gets so bad that the only way to stop hating yourself so much would be to prove that you can be disciplined, that you can completely cut out all the bad stuff, that you can be just like those girls on social media…

It was a loop.

It would repeat itself over the course of a week, sometimes a month, sometimes 6 months. It was meticulously kept secret from anyone who knew me, even people I dated. I wasn’t gaining or losing weight. I looked ‘fit’. But I was losing my mind. ‘Food noise’ took over my brain. I was a bad friend to the people I cared about, I didn’t care about work at all, I was stroppy, moody, unhappy, unfulfilled.

The need to be perfect was keeping me in a loop, a cycle of self-sabotage.

When I let go of the need to be perfect, the behaviours that I was most ashamed of (binge-eating and restricting) went away.

And with it, so did the disgust I held towards my body. The disappointment in her. The shame I had towards her.

It’s like a cloud lifted, and I realised that the way my body looked was never the issue. It was the way I was treating her that was causing me to hate her.

When I stopped restricting, being so so careful about avoiding things like packaged food and hidden sugar (would you believe this entire time I was scared to buy pasta sauce from a jar?), the choices that I made around supporting my body benefited my health more.

I choose to eat mindfully, eat plenty of vegetables, and make most of my meals at home - even if I do still get takeaways or eat out a few times a week - because I like eating food that makes me feel good.

I choose to do formal exercise at least 3 times a week, even if it’s not always a ‘hard’ workout or the optimal intensity, because I (weirdly) find it fun now.

I choose to do my best to get enough sleep, even though I do find it hard to get 8 hours. But it’s something that genuinely makes me feel so much better.

I am mostly pretty healthy, because I like looking after myself.

I am not a Pinterest-worthy depiction of that-girl.

But I don’t know for sure whether that-girl is even real. Or if she, too, is trying to project an image of perfection, discipline, and put-togetherness in order to be aspirational to herself.

All I can say is,

Being harsh on yourself, berating yourself for not being the version of ‘you’ that you thought you’d grow up to be and punishing yourself into changing isn’t the solution to creating a version of ‘you’ that you love.

But being kinder, softer, gentler and more forgiving… Might be.

And maybe I should just let myself be a bit shit at painting. Watch this space.

Lx