When it comes to weight loss and/or living a healthier lifestyle, you need to stop focusing on being perfect. There are many diets out there that drill into your head that you need to avoid certain food groups all together in order for them to work. These diets are not the answer.

A good example of this is a no carb diet. The idea is that you can eat as many high fat, no carbohydrates foods as possible, and you will shed weight like crazy. Besides the fact that this isn’t good for you, one slip up and a slice of bread later, and you’ve just undid everything you’ve worked for. This is just one example of these kinds of diets. They are unrealistic to follow long term and as I mentioned, extremely unhealthy.

The only way a diet is going to work is if you can make it into a lifestyle change. It needs to be something you can maintain long term (and without any crazy side effect, of course). What I’m saying is that when you are eating right for health and weight loss, having an occasional dessert or glass of wine isn’t going to have a huge effect on your results.

When I lost the bulk of my weight from 12 weeks postpartum to 20 weeks postpartum I was breastfeeding. So while alcohol was not an option for me diet or not, I definitely enjoyed a few treats. Having a new baby at home and working full time, plus breastfeeding (which is a full time job in itself), was a lot at once, and food is how I relax. Of course, the point is to train myself to get out of those old habits of turning to food when I get stressed, but it would stress me out more knowing I could never enjoy one bite.

Also, with the mindset of perfection, comes the guilt you put on yourself if you are not perfect. People who have the mindset they have to be perfect, tend to also be the people who throw the whole diet when they cheat. They feel so guilty for the one thing they ate that was not on plan that they assume they might as well keep going because they already “ruined their diet.” I know this because I was this person. It wasn’t until I changed my mindset to the fact that it was a treat and not a cheat, that I was successful.

To sum it up, the only way for you to be truly successful is to find a diet that allows you to maintain a manageable lifestyle, and get yourself away from thinking you need to be perfect all the time. It wasn’t until I realized perfection wasn’t important, that I started to live my healthiest and happiest life.