Ditch that All or Nothing Mindset

Do you have an all-or-nothing mindset when it comes to the following keto?

Even though it seems like you need to follow all of the keto rules – that all-or-nothing mindset kills weight loss results!

With keto, you do have to be stringent about following most of the rules. It is easy to get kicked out of ketosis when you don’t go all in. So what’s a struggling at the end of her rope, fed up keto dieter to do?

3 Ways to Ditch a Diet Mindset

Let’s talk about 3 steps you can take right now to ditch the all-or-nothing diet mindset.

Even if some of these ideas are familiar, keep reading. Hearing the same message over and over helps the message sink in. Repeated messages can help you finally get results!

If you struggle when it comes to an all-or-nothing diet mindset – pay close attention. Then, take action!

#1 – If you struggle to stick with keto, try low carb

Do you white-knuckle your way through keto during the week? And despite your best effort – you end up cheating every weekend?

Constantly restarting keto every Monday hurts your weight loss progress.

When you’re brand new to keto, it can take up to a week or more just to get into ketosis. If you continually push yourself out of ketosis by cheating every weekend, then you’re just spinning your wheels when it comes to ketosis.

With keto, you either need to commit or quit! But don’t quit forever. Keto is an amazing lifestyle with tons of health benefits.

When I say quit, I don’t mean to go back to whatever form of eating you followed pre-keto.

Do Low Carb Diets Work Better for Weight Loss?

Even with all of the studies that fight over which diets work best, the truth is you may have gained weight due to insulin resistance. This happens from too many years of eating too many processed carbs. If you don’t work to bring insulin down through a low-carb diet, then you will struggle with weight loss long term.

Instead of quitting a low carb lifestyle altogether, try a low carb plan instead. Continue to follow low carb until your physiology is ready to follow keto on a regular basis.

Go into your new low-carb lifestyle with the knowledge that your body is used to running on carbs. When you just take away most of the carbs you eat overnight – your body will hate you!

That’s one reason starting a keto lifestyle with a low-carb plan is a great way to start.

You still give your body some of the fuel it’s already used to running on. Swapping out some carbs for more fat and protein will help your body recognize new fuel sources. It’s less shocking for your body to transition to ketosis when you increase fat intake steadily.

I do have one BIG caution here: Too many carbs + too much fat leads to weight gain

It’s a great idea to increase your intake of healthy fats when you start a low-carb diet. Never eat ketogenic levels of fat while keeping carbs in a low-carb diet range.

Too Many Carbs + Too Much Fat = Weight Gain

When you follow keto, keep carbs very low and fat high.

With a low-carb plan, keep both carb and fat intake at moderate levels. Most women should stay around 100 grams of carbs per day when following a low-carb plan. Add enough fat and protein to fill in the hunger gaps. Just never stuff yourself with fat bombs because they taste good. Eating to satiation is key to success.

Check out How to Succeed on Keto Without Really Trying to learn the same low-carb plan I used to get started.

#2 – Get digestion in working order

Pretty much any diet – low carb or otherwise, is difficult to stick with if poor digestion is a problem.

Most people who come into keto need to improve digestion. This is where our members start with our Ready, Set, Keto! Method.

We help members figure out which digestive malfunctions or chemistry imbalances are holding weight loss back. Once members improve the way their bodies digest food, weight loss gets easier.

Every diet will be hard to stick to if your body can’t digest the foods you eat. Even if you don’t think you have poor digestion, don’t tune me out. When I first got started, I didn’t think my digestion was a problem either.

Turns out, my digestion was a train wreck!

My digestion being so screwed up kept me stuck in an all-or-nothing diet mindset.

When digestion is off, your mind constantly fixates on food. This happens because your body doesn’t break down the food you eat into usable nutrients. This means your body doesn’t get the nutrients you need to survive. This causes your brain to panic.

Without well-functioning digestion, your brain constantly fixates on your next meal. This can lead to binges and going off track with your plan every other week.

Whether you follow a low carb plan, or even if you jumped into the keto deep end, get digestion up to par. Neglecting this will cause you to struggle with that all too common all-or-nothing diet mindset. Without enough usable nutrients, your cravings will be off the charts.

Physiology wins every time.

This means you will cheat. Then you blame yourself for being weak.

You screwed up your diet again. The next thing you know, you’re back to researching the next new quick-fix plan. To feel better, you’ll tell yourself keto is just another diet plan that didn’t work for you.

My podcast co-host TC taught me most of what I know about digestion. He says any mental or emotional issues you have around food that start out at around a 10 on a scale that’s 1-10 will be lessened to a 2 or a 3 when you have digestion working as it should.

While a 2-3 isn’t perfect, think about how much easier it would be to stick to keto. Wouldn’t it be easier to stay consistent with keto when you’re not obsessing over food all day long?

The obsessing stops when your body is getting the nutrients it needs to thrive. When digestion works well, your mind can focus on things other than obsessing about your next meal. This can help you get rid of that feeling that you have to be all in, or else you failed.

A lot of times that feeling comes because nothing you tried in the past worked. You trained your brain to look for the worst in situations in order to keep you safe.

#3 – Change habits slowly

Weight loss is a series of good habits you follow on a consistent basis.

Weight gain is a series of bad habits you follow on a consistent basis.

You have the power to choose which habits you want to be consistent with.

The thing is – changing every bad habit you formed overnight is a BAD idea. In fact, it’s an idea that will keep you stuck!

It’s hard to take baby steps with the constant weight loss success stories you hear that seemingly happened overnight.

In case you haven’t realized this, many of these miracle stories are fabricated for marketing purposes. Weight loss companies want you to buy their products. The more you buy into these success stories, the more money these companies have in their pockets.

Also, the more quick fixes these companies sell you – the more weight you’ll lose. But wait – that’s awesome, isn’t it?

Meh – not so awesome when you quickly regain everything the second you quit buying into their expensive products. It becomes a never-ending cycle of quick-fix diet plan after quick-fix diet plan.

This is the reason I recommend baby steps.

Baby steps may seem too small when you have a lot of weight to lose. When you quit being in a rush to lose everything you gained overnight, suddenly big weight loss goals become easier to tackle. Breaking big goals down into baby steps helps.

Start with changing one habit. Work on that habit until you get it down. Once that new habit no longer seems like work because you fit it into your routine, then add in another new habit. Keep working to improve your habits as you work towards your weight loss goal.

Start with baby steps today.

The key is not to change too many habits all at once. Doing this will make you feel overwhelmed. Then you may rush back into the habits that got you where you are today.

Please don’t take that to mean the person you are today is a bad person. You need to celebrate who you are now. It’s so important to learn how to love yourself on the way down. If you can’t love who you are every step of the way, the weight you lose won’t stay lost. You don’t change into a brand new person just because you hit your goal weight.

With that said, I don’t think you’d be reading about changing your all-or-nothing mindset if you loved every part of your current situation.

When our Keto Decoded member Suzie ditched her all-or-nothing mindset, this changed her life. She switched to this baby step approach and did things the right way. She recently posted this in our group:

Suzie’s Testimonial:

“I have to thank TC and Nissa. I can’t tell you how your guidance has changed my life.

After reading TC’s books, taking the Ready, Set, Keto course, and listening to many podcasts, I’ve finally got my cravings and weight under control.

Since January, I lost 53 pounds. I cleared up many health symptoms I dealt with for years. I haven’t seen any signs of a weight loss plateau.

What’s different this time?

I focused on my digestion first, just like TC and Nissa recommend. I started taking Beet Flow, HCL, and Digestizyme. I also started using the self-tests regularly. Then, taking Nissa’s advice, I did what I’ve never done and went slow. I didn’t go all in. I started with low carb. Eventually, it morphed into keto. Now I’m intermittent fasting.

My weight loss journey has always been all or nothing. After listening to Nissa’s challenges, and how she overcame them with baby steps, I thought I’d give it a shot. It worked.

I’ve had a couple of setbacks, but I didn’t let them derail me. I figured out why they happened. Now I’m better prepared the next time it happens.

I still have a long way to go, but now I have a solid foundation. I know to take days one at a time, keep things simple, take baby steps with new processes, and use those self-tests.”

Ditch Your All-Or-Nothing Diet Mindset Wrap Up

As you can see, Suzie took all of the steps I recommend throughout this blog. She lost 53 pounds in 8 months. This is something she wasn’t able to do with other plans.

What’s even better than losing 53 pounds is her hope that the outcome will be different this time than previous weight loss attempts.

Taking baby steps helped Suzie’s brain let go of the bad habits that got her to where she didn’t want to be. This helped her slowly adopt new and better habits. These new habits are changing her life in all of the best ways.

Let’s review how to ditch that all-or-nothing diet mindset:

#1 – If you struggle to stick to keto, follow a low-carb plan until your body is able to burn fat for fuel.

#2 – Take the Digestion Course or read Kick Your Fat in the Nuts to learn how to improve digestion. This will help your body break down the fat and protein you need for a keto diet.

#3 – Break big weight loss goals into baby steps.

Get Better Results with Keto

If you’re new to keto, or you’re not getting the results you want – register for the Keto Quick Start Course.

This is the same course that’s helped hundreds of women finally lose weight with keto. Get the quick start you need to stay consistent with keto. In less than 60 minutes, you’ll learn the same plan that helps Keto Challengers lose between 10 – 25 pounds in only 3 weeks!