A Look Inside One of the Biggest Fitness Mistakes I Made

I  was blown away by the response from my last Strong. Confident. His. Podcast, episode 206: How to Stop Self-Sabotaging Your Weight Loss and Fitness Goals. So many of you messaged me that sharing this episode helped you see how your past trauma or pain was making you self-sabotage.

I prayed about what to share this week and God made it clear the conversation wasn’t over, we need to break the cycle of self-sabotage and He showed me something that I cannot wait to share with you!

These steps and scriptures are going to help you get free!

What is Self-sabotage?

Okay, let’s recap what we learned about self-sabotage. The reason why you self-sabotage is that it allows you to predict what is going to happen, which gives you the illusion of self-control.

One source shared this, “There is The Illusion of Control Through Self-Sabotage, because this form of self-control, albeit negative, reassures your deep-seated beliefs that you're a failure or a loser. By choosing to sabotage, you predict the outcome and, oddly enough, feel in control.” Source

Calm wrote, “People with low self-esteem often use self-sabotage as a means to make their reality align with their inner beliefs. It's a defense mechanism – if they mess up intentionally, they feel they're in control of the failure, or that it's just an expected flaw of their character.” Source

Let me ask you this:

1. What is your trigger? 
2. What is your time? 
3. What is your temptation?

So many of us are stuck in this fitness and dieting failure cycle. If fitness had an anthem it would be these 3 little words: All or Nothing! And all or nothing thinking is one of the biggest fitness mistake I made.

An All or Nothing Mindset is a Form of Self-Sabotage

Did you know that all-or-nothing thinking is a form of self-sabotage?

How many times have you been all or nothing about our fitness? Think about it, has all-or-nothing thinking ever worked? Nope!

The all mindset says, I’m so doing this, I’m going to lose 10 pounds in 1 week. I’m going to work out every day, I’m never eating pizza again, I’m always going to eat perfectly. No more missing workouts, no more eating bad, this is the time!

The nothing mindset says, it’s too hard, it’s been a week and I’m not losing any weight, I deserve to eat whatever I want, this isn’t the right time, I’ll do this later, it wasn’t going to work anyway, what was I thinking, I always fail, I might as well eat what I want at least food makes me happy

All or nothing thinking keeps us trapped in in a cycle of dieting and fitness failure.

Love Video? Watch the podcast taping!

Reasons for Self-sabotage

While our reasons for self-sabotage vary, I’m going to share a story about Abby.

She wanted to drop fifteen pounds. It had been her desire for years, and when she came to me I knew she needed a different approach. Even with the best food and training plan she didn’t believe she could do it. 

She had the “how to,” but she couldn’t seem to shake her old way of thinking about herself and what she was capable of. One day she said, “I’m a quitter. I never finish anything.” And there was the problem. As it turned out, the weight wasn’t the issue. My client saw herself as a failure, and that is why she wasn’t succeeding.

Question: Do you believe you can achieve your goals?

Because you can’t become who you want to be if you don’t change who you are. Your body will only do what your mind tells it to. You can change everything about your life—the way you eat, how much time you spend working change who out, and even your job—but if you don’t change your mindset, you’ll go back to the same old you.

We Can’t Expect New Results From an Old Mindset.

And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the old skins would burst from the pressure, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine is stored in new wineskins so that both are preserved.—Matthew 9:17

We have a God who heals us!

YAHWEH-RAPHA [yah-way-raw-faw]: "The Lord Who Heals" (Exodus 15:26) – “I am Jehovah who heals you” both in body and soul. In body, by preserving from and curing diseases, and in soul, by pardoning iniquities. Source

Let’s get free, let’s break every chain! There is an end to do this darkness, this cycle, I’m going to share 5 steps. Let me know which one you’re going to try.

1. See it, and Surrender it. You have to see it and admit to yourself that all or nothing doesn't work. That it isn’t healthy. And that it’s worldly. Do you see it? Write on a note on your phone or in your journal, God, I don’t want to be all or nothing anymore and I don’t want to self-sabotage help me stop. I surrender this to you. 
2. Choose a Word or a Phrase so when you spot this trap of self-sabotage of all or nothing you get out of the fitness failure cycle

Here are some words to choose from:

• Believe
• Faith
• Consistent
• Grace
• Reset

Phrases to choose from:

• I will persist until I succeed
• When you give up your dreams you die.
• Don’t let your inner me be your enemy
• Stop striving, start thriving
• I’m not where I want to be but thank God I’m not who I used to be. – Joyce Meyer

But blessed is the one who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit. (Jeremiah 17:7–8 NIV)

3. Ask God to help you create healthy goals and a healthy body image. God made you. He designed you. You are one of a kind. Your identity and worth are not in fitness; they are in Christ, so ask Him what drains you of His power and steals away your progress. For example: Thinking you’re a failure because of what you eat or don’t eat, or how you do or don’t exercise is not of God. This is a worldly teaching that worth is found in performance, and it causes the fitness-failure cycle. “Let us examine our ways and test them and let us return to the LORD.” (Lamentations 3:40 NIV)
4. Don’t be double-minded. When you ask God, believe He hears you and that you have received what you asked for. We can’t be double-minded. It’s like straddling the fence of the spirit and the flesh; belief and unbelief. “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord.” (James 1:6–7 NIV)

5. Choose to Honor God with your free will. God will not make us make the right choices, but if we walk in the Spirit, He will help us overcome our flesh. “So I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Galatians 5:16–17 NIV)

Quotes to encourage you

• The moment we come into any trial or difficulty, our first thought should be, not how soon can we escape from it, or how we may lessen the pain we shall suffer from it, but how can we best glorify God in it. —Susannah Spurgeon

• Leave it all in the Hands that were wounded for you. —Elisabeth Elliot

• Fight every battle on your knees and you’ll win every time. —Charles Stanley

The truth is this fitness journey is going to have bad days. You’re going to blow it, you’re going to eat things you didn’t want to, you’re going to skip workouts, and the scale may infuriate you—but these are just moments, and you can’t allow self-sabotaging all or nothing thinking to make you quit.

To get out of the self-sabotage all-or-nothing fitness failure cycle, we need to adjust our heart motives and expectations and put on the armor of God.

Nothing will give you more power than reflecting on and believing in who you are in Christ.

Remember, you are Strong. Confident. His.