“I’ll resume healthy eating after my vacation… once the baby is born… after Dad gets out of the hospital… January 1… Monday.” While this kind of “pause-button mentality” seems reasonable, it could be ruining your health and fitness. Here’s why, and what to do about it.
What’s the harm in taking a break from a nutrition and fitness plan when you are:
- leaving for vacation,
- completely swamped at work,
- pregnant, or just after delivery,
- injured, or
- caring for an ill family member?
For most of us the thought process boils down to:
If I miss some workouts, eat the wrong things, skip the homework… I fail.Aren’t I more likely to succeed if I take a break, just until I have the time to do it right?
This is what I call the ‘pause-button mentality’.
Now, don’t get me wrong.
I think it’s normal to want to do your best. To consider taking time to stop then resume (or start over) when life feels easier.
At the same time, this completely natural and well-meaning impulse is one of the fastest, surest, most reliable ways to sabotage your plans for improved nutrition, health, and fitness. Here’s why—and what to do instead.
Starting fresh after you lose your way is a really comforting thought
That’s probably why New Year’s resolutions are so popular, especially following the holiday season.
Give me that cheesecake. I’ll pick my diet back up on Monday!
The idea of a do-over is so alluring you don’t even need a mess-up for the pause-button mentality to take over.
Every January, gyms are packed with people, personal trainers welcoming a new group of clients. Every July, there is a second and final wave of people who wants to start their health and fitness journey again up for next New Year.
Every time we say to ourselves:
I will start over again, but I will really nail it this time!
But here’s the problem: The pause-button mentality only builds the skill of pausing
Whether it’s tomorrow, Monday, next week, or even next year, hitting that imaginary pause button gives you some sense of relief.
It allows you a little respite from what can be a really tough slog.
(And the middle is always a tough slog, it doesn’t matter what kind of project you’re working on.)
This perceived relief is compounded by the illusion that if we “start fresh” later we can find the magical “right time” to begin.
Listen, I get it.
It can feel absurd to try to improve your eating and exercise habits while you’re in the midst of chronic stress / looking for a job / starting a new job / going on vacation / caring for aging parents / raising small children.
That’s probably why there are so many 21-day this and 90-day that. What adult has more than 90 days to go after their fitness goals with an all-out effort?
But what do these intense fitness sprints teach you?
The skill of getting fit within a very short (and completely non-representative) period of your life.
What don’t they teach you?
The skill of getting fit (or staying fit) in the midst of a normal, complicated, “how it really is” sort of life.
This is why the yo-yo diet thing has become such a phenomenon.
It’s not about willpower. It’s about skills
In most fitness scenarios, you learn how to get fit under weird, tightly-controlled, white-knuckle life situations.
You build that one, solitary, non-transferrable skill—to slam the gas pedal down, drive the needle into the red, and squeal down the road for a little while, burning the rubber off your tires until you (quickly) run out of gas and crash.
What you don’t build is the ability to get fit under real-life conditions.
That’s why it doesn’t stick. Not because you suck.
But because the natural and predictable consequence of having a limited skill set is short-term progress followed immediately by long-term frustration.
What will be different next time?
I meet a lot of people who swore up and down that his low-carb diet plus daily running was the secret to staying in shape.
But then I am thinking to myself: “Well, why aren’t you actually in shape?”
If I ask them, the answer is similar to this: “Uhh, I’ve had a hard time sticking with it. We just had our second child. The holidays just ended. I just switched jobs. But, once everything settles down, I’ll get with the program and get in shape again! I guess I’m just on a little break.”
This illustrates the point perfectly.
Here are people who built their fitness on a house of cards. They know only one thing: How to get in shape by following a very challenging program when the conditions are perfect.
And whenever life isn’t perfect, which is most of the time, they hit the pause button. They wait for a better time. (All the while losing the health and fitness they previously worked so hard for.)
That’s why, when you are thinking to press pause, ask yourself:
“What will be different when you come back?”
Nine times out of 10, the honest answer is nothing. Nothing will be different.
Life is just… happening. And it’ll happen again in January, or after the baby is born, or after Mom gets better, or at any other arbitrary point you pick. And what then?
I’ve wanted to press “pause” myself
If you’ve ever felt like pressing pause, or you feel this way right now, it might help to know I’ve felt exactly the same way.
At first, I thought there was no way to exercise. I was injured, my schedule was completely packed, I had nowhere to work out, and my eating was less than ideal.
But after a couple of weeks I realized that something was going to be better than nothing.
My work would continue. Running new business would only get more demanding. My injury won’t go away if I won’t do anything. And my personal life needs more attention.
I realized I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t press pause. Because, if I didn’t continue, there’d never be that “perfect time” to hit play again.
I needed to find a way to squeeze in some kind of workout, however quick, easy, and unglamorous.
Let’s accept that life has no pause button
The key lesson here is that, like it or not, the game of life keeps going.
There is no timeout.
There’s never going to be a moment when things are magically easier.
You can’t escape work, personal, and family demands. Nor can you escape the need for health and fitness in your life.
Here’s a thought experiment:
What if you tried to hit pause in other areas of your life?
Imagine you’re up for a big promotion at work. For the next two weeks, all you want to do is focus on mastering an upcoming presentation, and winning over your boss.
Trouble is, you’ve got two young children at home who tend to grasp, koala-like, onto your legs and demand your full attention.
Honey, you say to your spouse, I’m just gonna press pause on being a parent for now. I’ll be staying at a hotel. Don’t contact me.
Probably that would NOT go over well in your family.
You can’t really press pause—and you definitely can’t hit reset—on being a parent. (You’ve thought about it, though. I know you have.)
Just like you can’t stop showing up for work and expect not to get fired. Or “take a break” from being married and not wind up divorced.
Generally, when it comes to life, we know we’re not always going to be on our A Game. Sometimes we’re superstars. Most of the time we just do our best.
We muddle through. We keep going.
So why do we expect it to be any different with fitness?
In my case, I am trying to walk more or do a simple workout program that met these criteria:
- No more than 3x a week.
- No more than 10 minutes per session.
- Has to be done upon waking up, right next to the bed.
- Requires no equipment.
Is it the Best Workout Ever? No! Did I end up, fitter than ever? Heck no!
But was it better than hitting the pause button and doing nothing? You bet!
See, perfectionism is not the point.
“Completing” any program is not the point.
Being the “best” for a tiny window of time is not the point.
The point is to keep going. Sometimes awkwardly, sometimes incompetently, sometimes downright half-assed. But to keep going nonetheless.
The “all or nothing” mentality rarely gets us “all”. It usually gets us “nothing”.
That’s why is better to do:
“Always something”.
Instead of pressing pause, adjust the dial
Nowadays I like to think of my fitness and nutrition efforts as a dial.
There are times when I want to dial my efforts up, and times when I want to dial them down. But I never want to turn the dial off completely.
Here’s how this plays out in the context of my life.
Sometimes, say when I’m training for a competition or concentrating on a particular goal, my fitness dial might be tuned to 9 or 10 out of 10.
Channel 10 means I work out every day. Every meal is planned and carefully considered. I think a lot about fitness. And not much about anything else.
Work, family, hobbies… they’re all in maintenance mode (with the permission of the people this affects, of course).
However, most of the time, my life involves busy work schedule, second job and setting up Nutritional business.
So these days, the dial rarely goes past 3 or 4. I work out, maybe, three days a week. And most of my meals are just “good enough”.
(For the record, I’m totally cool with that. There is no guilt about having my dial set a little lower. What’s most important is that the dial is still set to “on”.)
The important lesson: There’s a big difference between tuning your dial to 3, 2, or even a 1, and turning the whole thing off.
And when you realize how doable—and effective—channels 3 and 2 and 1 can be, you see that there’s never a good reason to hit “pause”.
MOVEMENT:
- Park farther from office to walk more;
- Take stairs instead of elevator;
- 10 min. workout next to bed in the morning;
- Reasonably challenging 30 min workout 3 times a week;
- Reasonably challenging 30 min workout 3 times a week, plus daily20 min. walk;
- 1 hour gym workouts 3 times a week, plus daily walk;
- Gym routine 4 times a week, plus hike on weekends;
- 1 hour gym workouts 5 times a week, plus daily 1 hour walk;
- Challenging 60-90 min workouts 6 times a week;
- Intense daily training for tactical military job.
NUTRITION:
- Replace 1 meal with less processed one;
- Add side salad to your lunch;
- Try one new health recipe once a week;
- Sit at the table for most of the meals;
- Protein with each meal;
- Protein with each meal, plus portion of fruit and vegetables at most of the meals;
- Prepare food for week in advance; 6 servings of vegetables (one serving a day);
- Prepare food in advance; protein plus vegetables at each meal; balanced fats;
- Eat mostly local, organic; plan all meals in advance, each “perfectly” balanced;
- Run organic farm and health spa; all meals prepared by sports nutritionist; eat slowly with no distractions.
OVERALL WELLNESS
- 5 min. of wind-down time before bed;
- 5 min to plan for the next day’s workouts and nutrition;
- Regular 5 min. breaks from work for fresh air and sunlight;
- Turn off electronics 30 min. before bed; read book and chill out;
- Daily walk outdoors with loved one; pet your dog;
- One massage a month; hug a loved one;
- 10 min. meditation a day; 7+ hours sleep a night; hugs;
- Do something nice for others; engaging hobby; minimal screen time;
- Fulfilling paid or volunteer work; daily meditation; no Facebook; more sleep; express yourself;
- Full day of joy play, fresh air, rewarding close relationships; work outside at relaxed, meaningful, physical job; quiet contemplation and meditation.
I get it. It’s easy to discount the lower channels. Especially when you’ve done more in the past. But remember your new mantra…
“Always something”
Instead of hitting the “pause”, challenge yourself to embrace imperfection and do something every day:
Each day, ask yourself: If I can’t do what was asked of me, what can I do? What can I manage (physically, emotionally, mentally) now?
Then do it.
Meanwhile, also try to add spontaneous activity into your days. Do more walking every time you can, move around. Go for evening walks.
Anything to stay active.
For example do random squats while you are waiting or going to the toilet
Your key way:
Perfection never happens in real life.
We’re always going to be doing the best we can with what we have.
And that’s okay.
We can still make progress toward our goals and still improve our health and our fitness—whatever’s going on in our lives.
That progress doesn’t happen if you “press pause” and wait for a better time.
It doesn’t happen if you say “I’ll squat again once the Dad situation resolves itself”. Or if you ask for a re-do next week, next month, next year.
“Fitness in the context of real human life”
That’s one of my mottos.
Stay healthy and fit in the context of real live.
Not while pretending to be someone you are not. Not by signing up for a 12-week boot camp with daily workouts and restrictive diets.
But by living your own live and practicing “always something”. In my opinion, pressing pause is buying into an imaginary ideal: a “perfect” time when everything will fall into place; a beautiful, linear trajectory from total suckiness to apex awesomeness:
Asking for a restart because you don’t want to mess that line up is deluding yourself that somehow, next time will be easier. Next time will be perfect. No interruptions, no distractions… no… life.
Unfortunately, there is no perfect time.
We may have magical moments, of course. Short periods of time when things seem to “click” and come together.
But then the dog poops on the rug. Or the kid throws up on the couch. Or both… and then one or the other tracks it all through the house. You keep pressing pause, and your progress looks like this.
Or, worse yet, you end up flat-lining, stuck on a never-ending (maybe eternal) pause.
What to do next
Fitness in the context of real human life is just like the rest of life.
We’re all just doing the best we can in challenging, complicated circumstances. We are all living messy, imperfect lives. We are all human.
If we can just keep moving forward, no matter what happens, no pause buttons, no do-overs, we win the game.
Here are a few strategies for getting out of the pause-button mentality and into a more realistic, effective, sustainable way of thinking.
Fitness in the context of real human life is just like the rest of life.
We’re all just doing the best we can in challenging, complicated circumstances. We are all living messy, imperfect lives. We are all human.
If we can just keep moving forward, no matter what happens, no pause buttons, no do-overs, we win the game.
Here are a few strategies for getting out of the pause-button mentality and into a more realistic, effective, sustainable way of thinking.
1. Try the dial method.
Think of your fitness like a dial that goes from 1 – 10.
If you were to dial it up to “10”…
- What would your workouts look like?
- What would your nutrition look like?
- What other actions/habits would you practice in that scenario?
If you were to dial it down to “1”…
- What would your workouts look like?
- What would your nutrition look like?
- What other actions/habits would you practice in that scenario?
Giving thought to your life right now, where is your dial set?
Would you like to make any adjustments?
Could you move the dial up a channel, or even half a channel?
If so, what would that look like?
On the other hand…
Should you move the dial down a channel so you can stick with health and fitness even during a difficult time?
2. Aim for a little bit better.
An all-or-nothing approach usually doesn’t get us “all”. It usually gets us “nothing”.
You know what actually works?
Small improvements done consistently over time work.
You might be trying to make a meal out of hospital cafeteria food, or gas station food, or airplane food. You might be spending hours awake with a new-born in the middle of the night, or stuck in yet another full-day meeting.
These aren’t ideal scenarios, but they’re not necessarily hopeless either.
Look around. Get creative. See if you can find some small—maybe minuscule—improvements.
3. Anticipate, strategize and plan.
Since we already know that stuff is going to go wrong, the best thing we can do is anticipate and make plans for how to deal when they do.
A simple way to do this is by answering two questions:
- What’s likely to get in the way of what I hope to accomplish?
- What is something I can do today to help me keep going when I face those obstacles?
For some people, that might be a Sunday ritual where they prep food for the week so they won’t be scrambling for healthy meals on busy weeknights. For others, it might mean having a healthy meal-delivery service on speed dial. Don’t be surprised and dismayed when things go haywire. They will at some point. Just arm yourself with the best tools and strategies so you can stay in the game when you’re thrown a curveball.