How Can I Improve My Discipline Without Becoming an OCD Mess?
This was a real question I was asked on my Instagram stories in June. And it’s a very good question. One that you probably haven’t thought of because you either are an OCD mess about health and fitness or you feel like you need to find the motivation to become more disciplined. The girls in between? Congratulations, you are a small number.
In my articles, I try and use clients as the examples rather than elaborating on myself. However, this question and my response to it rang the “let’s self-indulge” bell, because I think it’s important for you to know I didn’t always have a flexible, sustainable relationship with my body, movement, and food. To be honest, to this day, I still struggle with some aspects.
My Story of Discipline Becoming an OCD Mess
I woke up anxious to workout. I only ate certified Paleo ingredients (2009-2017-era Paleo, mind you), which meant a limited amount of approved foods. I refused cookies that were brought into the classroom, because they weren’t healthy and felt a sense of pride for refusing them. That pride was inflated when classmates and teachers recognized me as the healthy one of the bunch, the one who worked out and who ate so well. I was valued, in my mind, based on how clean my food was and how persistent I was with my exercise. True dedication in the raw.
I forecasted my food logs for the week, then modified them daily, sometimes multiple times a day based on what I had or didn’t have. I was rewriting and reorganizing. I was planning my life around two workouts a day. I was resistant to go out to eat, because the restaurants didn’t cook their meals with ingredients that were approved by whoever Paleo was.
Though sometimes, I would eat a whole container of my roommate’s white chocolate covered pretzels and act like it wasn’t a big deal. To only be tossing and turning for nights on end berating myself for knowing better.
I would exercise to burn off additional calories I ate.
I would bring my own meals to social events or refuse to eat at all.
I did this out of the definition of being disciplined towards good health.
I did this to control the uncontrollable at the time, which made me neurotic about food and movement.
The happy medium was unrealistic. I believe you either cared about your health or were lazy.
Let’s Talk About Motivation Next
Back to you and my clients. You have said it before, and I have heard it from every client. “I just need to find the motivation.” The motivation to eat better, to get to the gym, to dial it in.
Motivation is great, but when you say this, it is often without a plan and prompts one of my favorite questions: “Great. What is your plan when there is no motivation?” (Hint: discipline). I want to put it in a different context. When were you motivated to finish your electroacoustics grad school essay due in two months? First, what the heck is electroacoustics? (See, still working on my cussing!) Second, that is a “due in three days” problem.
Health works the same way in your brain.
Motivation to improve your health is a fleeting feeling. Sometimes you will be motivated by your marriage dissolving or the other soccer moms, and sometimes you will be motivated by a health scare and your husband looking better. You will always have a reason to be motivated to “just do it.”
But you won’t.
So, How Do You Do it?
Discipline. Or as my mom’s yoga instructor says, “The two times you do this: when you feel like it and when you don’t.”
It is it the act of persisting through either something that is uncomfortable, with high resistance, or that you don’t want to do. In short, you need to set your daily lifestyle to match what you are willing to do, then continue to discipline yourself through not wanting to do that.
Roll it back to clients:
Ivette has a busy household with two young girls, a husband, and your typical corporate job. For breakfast, she either has a great, nutrient dense meal or skips it because of time. If she skips, she has the discipline to go to the fridge at work and grab her “whoopsie” protein drink, so she, at least, has something in the tank. Does she love the idea of not having whole, nutrient dense foods? No. But, she has the discipline to recognize that something is better than nothing.
Another client example, Alexis. Alexis’ kids were in Spain with their dad for a week. She felt alone and missed them. She wanted to stay home, lay on the couch, and be sad. Was she motivated to go to the gym? No. But, she found the discipline and consistency to do it, because it makes her feel better mentally and emotionally when she is struggling.
If these client examples seem trivial to you reading this, your goals may be larger or not at all similar, and that’s okay. You may be reading this thinking how could you possibly not have lunch? I have mine by 11 AM, workout, and still have time to manage my career! You may just be the OCD mess that I am addressing.
Warning
I am not talking about how to create a lifestyle to incorporate health, we are talking about when you are already health-focused and don’t want to fall into orthorexia. Have you heard of it? See my “About Me” on the first page for the real-life example.
Orthorexia defined by NEDA means “an obsession with proper or ‘healthful’ eating… actually damage their own well-being and experience health consequences such as malnutrition and/or impairment of psychosocial functioning.” The signs of orthorexia:
Obsessive checking of nutritional labels and ingredient lists
Eating a narrow range of foods that are considered healthy
A feeling of superiority with nutrition
An intolerance of other people’s food behaviors and beliefs
Increased levels of perfectionism
Social impacts
How do you swerve around this part?
Okay, It’s Your Turn
In truth, there isn’t a golden road that shows you how to do health without an OCD mess. And your problem isn’t the same as mine, Ivette’s, or Alexis’.
Here’s what I do know through coaching women like you:
You must know your past behaviors
You must work on those behaviors and thought patterns
You must continue to check in
You must be honest with yourself
You must set boundaries for yourself
Let’s talk through each of these using me as an example (because I can speak best to what was happening in my mind compared to assuming the client examples).
1. You Must Know Your Past Behaviors
I would rewrite my meal plans multiple times. When I wrote I was going to have 15 almonds and decided to only have 10, this meant I needed a whole new piece of paper with it written out correctly.
If I didn’t get to the workout in the morning, I would spend the entirety of the day feeling anxious (self-induced, mind you) and commit to going to the gym that night for a longer duration.
If I ate something off my “approved” lists or had an unplanned for meal or dessert, my mind would be spinning that this was against who I was as a person. I would berate myself, tell myself I knew better, and contemplate how I could avoid a situation like that again.
2. You Must Work on Those Behaviors and Thought Patterns
I began to tell myself it’s okay to scratch out the original paper and write out what I ate. I started giving myself permission not to track everything, especially since I was eating pretty much the same meals most of the time anyway.
I injured myself and had surgery, so I had to learn how to be okay with exercise that was physical therapy. I had to have quieter mornings where I focused on learning about quantum physics (it was a weird time in my life) and completed courses to further my career. I shifted the discipline to other areas of my life that needed support.
I began to tell myself “You didn’t die” if I ate something off course, because ultimately that was the worst thing that could happen to me in my mind. I began to talk out loud to myself and ask what I would tell my best friend in this moment.
3. You Must Continue to Check In
I continue to challenge myself by allowing flexibility – sometimes I don’t log every meal in MyFitnessPal when I am dining out, or accept what I did record is good enough.
I make it a point to listen to my body and challenge myself with not always lifting heavier but to focus more on feeling the muscles the movement is targeting. To slow down. I schedule rest weeks to practice the act of rest and show myself that continual, structured movement isn’t necessary to achieve results.
I inquire if the food is unique to the social setting or something I can buy at Wal-Mart any day. I ask myself if I eat this “bad” food, then am I going to self-hate? Because that is not fair to do to myself.
4. You Must Be Honest with Yourself
I know I am not good at this alone, which is why I work with a fantastic coach. Really, you should check her out too. I am open when my past self creeps in and return to the learned techniques I used in the past that worked for me: talk out loud, say what is the worst thing that could happen, challenge myself to be uncomfortable, and ask why this is bothering me.
The thing that holds me most accountable towards not spiraling into OCD mess of health? I want you to have success too. I can’t be different from my clients. I pride myself on practicing what I preach. I am not lying about my experiences, hiding any hacks, or doing what I wouldn’t recommend for you. I am no different and I cannot hold myself to different standards just because I am a coach.
If I would ask my clients to do this for themselves, then I too must ask it of myself.
5. You Must Set Boundaries for Yourself
You will learn where your red line is. Key word: learn. You will not know until you cross it, and you may not learn where it was until it’s too late. Then, you have to work on turning back. This is unfortunate, right? Why can’t we just know? However, the more you oscillate between the unknown and the familiar, you will be better at recognizing when the OCD mess is bubbling. You will turn around and tell yourself how proud you are that you chose a different path, albeit small.
I know there’s a boundary between entering my meals in MyFitnessPal for the week and planning ahead. Then, there’s the boundary when I go out to eat that I do not repetitively go back to the meal and edit every morsel of the ingredients. Log it, be done.
With exercise, I have the experience of pushing my body to the brink. I went through a “come to Jesus” for years, and I have a fear that acknowledges that I do not want to have to go through that again. Truly – not working out, taking a step back, finding other things that enhanced my life was great. But it was also torture and a large expenditure on my energy and mental revelations. Therefore, I know I need rest weeks and that there is no benefit for me to work out more. More is just more.
I’m Sorry, This Wasn’t the Answer You Wanted
Back to the real question: how to improve discipline?
Start with what’s manageable… then, make it even more manageable. Examples:
I would like to meal prep every week —> I will buy already prepped items and make my meals from the ingredients —> I will then schedule time to prep those meals and then, eventually include prepping the ingredients and purchase less of the already prepped items over time.
I will work out 5 times this week —> I will start with 10 body weight squats every day and add to that as I track my consistency.
Schedule the time. You have seen the Pinterest post before that says you would hesitate or refuse to break the appointment you had for the STD testing after Bryce Bevvy. Treat your movement and routine the same.
Hire a coach. I know you don’t want to spend the money when you know what to do, and you’re doing it yourself… inconsistently. Hiring a coach isn’t about what you’re not doing but more so about how to make your goals achievable in a more efficient way. You will reach your goals faster with a great coach compared to you coaching yourself.
Track your consistency with a real-life calendar. That’s right. Go to the store or Amazon a calendar to yourself. Put that thing up somewhere visible and use a marker to track the consistency of your new habit. Look back after 3 months and assess how consistent you were. Was it over 90%? Great, move on to the next disciplinary action you are trying to integrate. Below 90%? Keep going until you reach the consistency threshold before integrating a new objective.
I think the best term is from our Yoga influencer: discipline and it occurs twice, when you want to do it and when you don’t.
