Relapse Mistake #6: Perceptual Dissatisfaction with Body Weight and Shape

Relapsers often express great dissatisfaction with their new body weight and body shape even when they have made huge strides in progress. They tend to make comparisons of themselves to others and when taken to an extreme, this can lead to perfectionism where no achievement ever seems good enough. Relapsers also tend to make judgments about themselves as people strictly on the basis of their physical attributes.

The pursuit of constant improvement is clearly a virtue. Some of the healthiest and fittest people in the world credit their success to never becoming complacent and always striving for better results. This seems to be in conflict with body dissatisfaction as a cause for relapse. We can reconcile this paradox by understanding that we can strive for continuous improvement while simultaneously liking ourselves every step along the way-it's not one or the other.

It's also important to get very clear about how far you want to take your physical development and how much time and effort you are willing to invest. Not everyone wants or needs to look like a cover model for a fitness magazine. Use the 80/20 thinking here. Suppose you want to get 80 percent of the way to what you consider to be your physical ideal with a modest investment of time and effort. To capture the next 15 percent takes more time and serious hard work. The final 5 percent requires monumental full-time effort. How far do we want to go and how much are you willing to pay for it? There is more to life than exercise and dieting. It is truly up to us how far we wish to go and what this effort may cost us in other areas of our lives.