DEALING WITH DIET FATIGUE

Weight loss and fitness culture spends an awful lot of time shouting at us to “go big or go home!” and you know sometimes it is literally shouting. We are told that we should push ourselves as hard as we can to achieve our goals and that is we’re not “better every day” than we must be doing something wrong. But what happens when you are going as hard as you can for an extended period of time? When your journey is going to be longer than a 30 day cut or a 75 day challenge, “Diet fatigue” can be a natural result. What’s diet fatigue? Let’s talk about it.

To start, the word “Fatigue” is defined as “weariness from bodily or mental exertion.” And oh man, is it accurate or what? Fatigue as a result of an extended period of caloric restriction and dieting can manifest in physical and mental/emotional ways for sure. Weight loss is challenging and of course there will be rough days but it also needs to be said that being in a consistent sustained caloric deficit is a stressor on your body. You are not a bad person or even doing anything wrong if you hit a point where going forward feels like trudging through molasses.

Before I get into the signs of diet fatigue, I want to stress that this isn’t just frustration over needing to make changes or a made up excuse to decide you need to take a break but a truly overwhelming sense of weariness that can come along on your journey, even if your plan feels right and sustainable. Let’s get into some of the signs that this may be something you are facing.

Plan Rebellion

Here I am talking about second guessing the plan or way of eating you are following with no real distinct reason why. You like your food choices, your body responds well to them but you hit a point where “nothing sounds good” and the feeling isn’t momentary but consistent.

Tired of Tracking

You’ve been a whiz at tracking your food and macros for quite some time but now opening up your app or journal feels like the heaviest lift of the day. You find yourself falling back on guesstimating amounts or just not tracking at all. You try to tell yourself that you need to get back to it but are truly struggling to regain that consistency.

Workouts are Chores

Being active, be it outdoors, at home, or in the gym had been a fun part of your routine. Activity was a supportive force on your health journey but now every workout feels like a chore you just don’t want to do. Instead of putting in effort you’re going through the motions, desperate for the time to pass, or you’re starting to skip them consistently. And you’re conscious of this but can’t bring yourself to care.

Goals are Fuzzy

When we first begin a weight loss journey, our goals are usually in laser focus. As things progress and we start hitting our goals the objective should be to keep them clearly defined as we build new goals. Here though, you’re letting your goals become too generalized or ill defined. You’re going from specifics to generalities and it seems like a fog has set in.

Maximum Effort, Minimal Results?

You feel like you are doing everything you can and you’re not seeing any results at all. Everything is perfect. Or is it? Fatigue can make it hard for us to have true perspective on what we think we’re doing versus what we are actually doing. It can also make us lose sight of the progress we are actually making because it leads to fixation on things like the scale staying the same for a few days or weeks even.

Can’t Go On

This one is honestly the biggest sign of all, and I think it might be the one I get the most pushback on, so let’s go! There are times where mentally and physically you’re just done. You may still be doing everything you need to be doing but your mind and even your body is pushing back hard and you’re finding yourself thinking, “I’m not sure how much longer I can do this.” You’re actively fantasizing about just quitting everything and probably starting to pile on a lot of guilt and shame over these thoughts. You want to know why after months or even a year of hard work, you’re now feeling like it’s too much when you expected things to get easier. You think there must be something wrong with you because all you see on line is people grinding hard with big smiles.

I want to be a loud voice that tells you that there’s nothing wrong with you!!! Fatigue is real, and it may be influenced by so much more than your diet and weight loss efforts but this is the area bearing the brunt of it all. Life can be challenging and feeling the weight of those challenges does not mean you are broken or just not capable of success.

This is not just about one of these signs popping up, but several of them crafting a perfect storm that requires a response so that you don’t just throw your hands up and give up on your goals. Be honest with yourself, if there are areas in these signs that you know you are letting go of but could easily correct, do so. But if that’s not it, what should you do? I do have some suggestions and they may surprise you.

Shake Things Up

Something to try at first is finding ways to shake up things like your food choices and your workouts to introduce some variety you may be missing. We do sometimes get so deep into repetition and structure that we eat the same meals over and over, and we do the same workouts, and start to burn out on them. So a great first step is trying to switch up some of those choices and seeing if you feel some relief.

Refocus Your Goals

Taking the time to sit down with yourself and clarifying your current goals from a short term and long term perspective is a helpful way to refresh yourself. I recommend on a monthly basis doing this. With your goals in focus you can also then assess if your action plan reflects them. Part of the fatigue might be your goals are in one direction and your actions are in another.

Take a “Break”

This is probably the scariest piece of advice but one of the most important. It is okay to take a break from the diet grind. This does not mean tossing everything out the window or giving no thought to your choices, but instead literally giving your body a break from the caloric deficit you have been in. If you are paying attention to your intake, you should have a pretty good sense of where your maintenance calories are at and it could be time to revisit them. Raising your targets to reflect your maintenance level for a week can offer a much needed physical and even emotional break from what you have been doing. Honestly, you can choose to do this for more than a week as well. The important thing is to remember that you are in charge of this journey and if you truly feel that you are overwhelmed by the fatigue, giving yourself some time at maintenance may provide more assistance than you could imagine. I have seen individuals who know their journeys will take years who have worked in a month or two (or even longer) of maintenance every 6 months. Taking a diet break can allow you to refocus and energize your efforts, and give your body a hormonal break from the stress of an extended deficit. Be clear, this is not about going off the rails and removing all structure and restriction. If you are keto, the caloric increase should primarily focus on protein and fat. And this is not a break from your primary food choices and your activity. Those are things we do because they make us feel good, not punishments. Like I said above, you make shake them up, but don’t lose sight of their purpose. Being open to taking a break is a hard thing because it flies in the face of the “just grind harder and push through” mentality that dominates the health and fitness space. And yes, you will most likely see no scale movement or even a small (3 to 5 pound) weight bump that levels out when you do this. Being okay with that can be a much healthier choice over deciding that you are just done trying at all.

And I want to add that any of these decisions to make change or take a break can be very scary. They do not mean you have given up on yourself or your goals. In fact they mean that you are honoring your needs not ignoring them. This is your journey in the end, not mine and not anyone else’s. You get to decide to what is right for you and you also have to accept the responsibilities that come along with that. Taking care of yourself and giving yourself grace if you are truly exhausted is a priority. Don’t see fatigue as a reason to punish yourself but as an opportunity to find new ways to show yourself care.

Is diet fatigue something you are dealing with or concerned about? The support of a coach can make a big difference when facing these issues. Click here if you want to schedule a free consultation with one of us!