Why The "Diet Starts On Monday" Mentality Will Always Fail You

Now I'm sharing what I know with you fitness , nutrition and all the deeper stuff to help you discover your strongest body . Hello , hello , welcome back to your strongest body . Thanks for being here , thanks for listening . Today we are talking about how the quote unquote diet starts on Monday .

Mentality is always going to fail you , it is always going to lead you astray , and while it is so tempting and while it is culturally just ingrained in our mind and it is our autopilot kind of action , it is what is constantly getting in the way of your progress . It is sabotaging you before you even start . So what do I mean by this ?

So there is you know some people gave it the title the diet starts on Monday description , and that is to describe this kind of thinking where you're going to overhaul your whole life or start your restrictive diet or start your extreme fitness plan on Monday , meaning that on Friday , saturday , sunday , or let's say you're at Tuesday .

You don't have to begin those behaviors until then and you are magically going to become this different person who's able to accomplish these things . But it doesn't start till Monday . So have at it now , go all out , and then you know it can . All your life can change on Monday . It's a really common form of thinking . That is why it got a its own name .

You might have seen it in some of like anti diet sort of information or content that's out there , even just sort of like nutritionists sharing that sort of warning . But also you might see it in people's content that's about being going wild on the weekends . So it's really common form of thinking .

It is how we have societally and culturally at least here from what I can see from the United States it's how we approach health and fitness . It is the idea that we can transform on a Monday . That Monday promises something new and there's something lovely about that . You know . There's something lovely to the idea that you can start anew .

The challenge here is that it is magical thinking . It's magical thinking and people do it with diets , with nutrition , but also with their fitness , with any sort of productivity trait they're trying to take on .

This is a really common form of thinking that magically , on Monday , I will be a different person who is able to do X , y and Z , and so I give myself permission now to go to the far extreme , as well as because I know that I will be restricting myself or pushing myself in some way , starting on Monday .

My behavior before Monday is grabbing the last of this , binging on certain things or not even asking my body to move because I'm going to start my extreme fitness plan on Monday . Let's think this through from a sort of Example scenario .

So let's say you are , you are gonna start a you know I'll call it quote-unquote clean eating diet on Monday and you are going to start working out every day for 60 minutes every day . You're gonna start on Monday . So let's imagine , right now it's Sunday morning . Sunday morning , you have got to figure out Everything you need to get ready for Monday .

You start to develop this stress about having all these pieces together . As you are meal prepping , as you are Lining up your workout clothes , all of these things , you are snacking on anything you aren't going to include in your diet , and you are , you haven't fit in Movement and you're putting all this stuff together .

So there's a lot of hope , but there's also a lot of behavior that's like let me get it in now because I won't be able to do it before . Maybe you feel really hungover because on Saturday night you went out and you went hard because you know that on Monday You're gonna start this . So then you start on Monday .

Let me tell you it is going well at 7 30 am . You've enjoyed the breakfast that you prepared . It is going well . At 12 30 you actually remembered to bring the Food from home . That went well and you make it to the gym and get your workout in Monday was a success . You had the dinner you wanted . You got to bed early , perfect .

Tuesday morning you wake up . That breakfast is working again . You get to work Meeting popped up and you realize you forgot your lunch . So you don't have time to go home to get that prepared lunch . So you got to order lunch . All right , well , I can find something that works for me . You make that work . Not exactly what you wanted , but it's fine .

Get to five o'clock and , oh man , something came up . You have to stay a little late at work . You don't get to your workout . All right , not the end of the world , but it's fine . You have some social gathering that you have to go to . That evening you have a little bit of something that you didn't want to . You stay up a little late .

Wednesday morning rolls around . Wednesday is the Prepared breakfast is not appealing as much . You think about how you missed the workout yesterday . You're not gonna go unless you can get the full 60 minutes . So you don't do it and two other things popped up and the week starts to unravel .

More things happen , more of that general likes life stress occurs and Suddenly you get to Thursday morning and you're like it did not happen for me this week . All those things didn't happen . I failed that's kind of language You're using . I failed , I did , it didn't work and Now I'm just gonna like whatever , I'll start again on Monday .

Diet starts on Monday and then from Thursday To Sunday night , you have now given yourself again this unconditional permission , but this unconditional permission that has a condition attached on Monday it's it's going away . The permission you're giving yourself is going away on Monday . So you have a a Need to get it all in now .

That cycle continues , and whether it continues every week or whether you have three successful weeks and it happens on the fourth week . It happens because you've set unrealistic Expectations .

You've put everything on that magical thinking of shifting who you are and what you do on Monday , so you take on way too many changes at once and then you're leaning into something that's far too restrictive and forcing you To .

Whenever you have a moment , whenever you give yourself that mental break , whenever you say I now have permission , but I only have it for a little while you are , you're gonna run with it , you're gonna sleep in , you're going to Eat a bunch of food that you don't really that you're gonna tell yourself you can't have starting Monday .

You're gonna drink a bunch of things You're gonna say you can't have until Monday .

That is how you trap yourself in this constant cycle of having to start over , having to start over . You put so much pressure on Monday . No wonder Sundays have the scariest , whether or not you six , you do that one week or every other week or whatever it may be .

You put so much pressure on those days and you make those weekend days feel like your only time to let loose , let go , whereas if you think about it more , with less restrictive behaviors , with more small habit changes over time and with treating every day a little bit more similarly to the day before , you're allowing yourself to have a good blend of those things

and you're not asking yourself to reinvent who you are , what you do , your identity every Monday . That's so , so hard , that's so hard and it really promotes going wild , going off the rails , letting loose on those other days .

We want to get to a place where our health and fitness decisions coexist with our decisions that include pleasure and fun , and that they live in a place that overlaps , so that we have some of that every day . Because , also , mondays are always already hard enough . Why would you want to take all the joy out of your life every single Monday ?

In fact , I think there are lots of opportunities to actually have some of your most pleasurable foods on Monday or have a thing that you're looking forward to on Monday , so that it helps to take off the edge of having to feel like you need to be quote unquote healthy or quote unquote on your game on Monday .

There's got to be less of a distinction in some of those days . So here , if you find yourself and you may find yourself falling into this trap a little less to the extreme , but you realize that you're putting all of your new behaviors , all of your new change , attaching it to the pressure of Monday . I want to tell you I want you to do two things .

One , I want you to get rid of the idea that you need to change more than one thing at a time .

I know , trust me , I know this is a really hard thing to ask you to do , because that magical transformation that someone's showing you on the internet or that someone is showing their three weeks and I look wildly different , or three weeks and I'm the strongest person you've ever met , it's unrealistic and it's very hard to maintain .

Maybe there are circumstances where you need that quick fix , but those quick fixes don't tend to have long-term success . So when I tell you you can only do one thing at a time , I know you're saying but this is going to take forever . But if it takes forever and lasts forever , isn't that better ?

Would you rather have it work this time than have to start again every single Monday ? And let's be serious If you do that all-or-nothing approach , you restrict , you start on Monday , you go wild on the weekends . Those wild weekends begin to accumulate more than you think .

They're adding on All the quote-unquote good you're doing on Monday through Wednesday is not offsetting all of the extremes you're going to on Friday , saturday and Sunday , and I mean that both nutritionally but also exercise-wise , also stress-wise , all of those things .

If you're living in those two extremes , I'm going to tell you which extreme is going to win most of the time , and that is the one where pleasure reigns supreme and it's taking , it's adding a bunch of calories , it's stealing a bunch of energy .

Not saying that you can't have those things , but you do it differently if you're restricting , if there is a promise of restriction in the future versus a balance of letting these things coexist , without one being bad and one being good , about finding ways to make your life feel the best and most supportive for yourself .

So I want you to think about one small thing at a time . It is entirely reasonable for you to think that you're going to take on a new behavior or a new habit , but we're going to do one at a time , and then I'm going to throw something out to you that is going to feel possibly monumental slash . You've never , no one's ever , told you this before .

And if they have , great . I want you to take on that new habit on a Friday or a Saturday . I want you to take on that new habit on a Friday or a Saturday . Two reasons why . One , it is not a Monday , so it does not bring it , or a Sunday . Bring in this mentality of like we're starting fresh , we're starting over .

It does not , it's not attached to your most routine day . It's attached to your probably least routine days . If you work a typical Monday through Friday work schedule . It's also reminding you . If you start on those days , you're learning how to incorporate them .

On the days where the most Off the plan you could get or the most Throw it all out the window you could be , lots of people are laced up and doing so much stuff and I and I say restricting they're restricting themselves Monday through Thursday and they're losing it , like I said , between Friday and Sunday .

Can you live your best Friday life a A life where you do go to the happy hour or you do stay out a little late , or you do go out to dinner that night , but you also Incorporate that habit that is really easy to make work on a Monday but is harder to make work on a Friday . Start those habits on the weekend .

Begin to train your brain and body to see those weekend days as just other days . They are not good days or bad days . I mean they're great when you get to spend them with the people you love and things like that . You don't have to go to work , but they're not Let me just go wild because I have to be quote-unquote good on Monday .

So these are the two things . If we're going to leave that diet starts on Monday mentality behind . We've got to start thinking about change that we are incorporating into our lives as one change at a time , one small . I can do it . Change at a time . And We've got to take the Monday or the Sunday night of it away .

Try incorporating these new single habits on either a Friday or a Saturday , even a Thursday . If Thursday is the ladies night for you , whatever that might be , what day do you feel like you start to Lose the energy or excitement to keep that going ? What day feels like it's in competition with Some of the healthier choices that you think you're making ?

See if you can make those on that day and find a marriage between fun and pleasure and socializing and Still maintaining the things you want in order to reach your goals . All right , let me know what you think . Let me know if this is helpful . You can always chat with me , betsy , at be foster strong , comm or on Instagram at foster underscore strength .

Thank you for all the shares that we've had recently with that giveaway . Thank you for the reviews and the ratings on Apple Podcasts . If you haven't , and you would like to , I would so appreciate you sharing that , going down and rating or writing a review . And Until next time , go build your strongest body and I'll talk to you soon . Bye .