A weight loss or health strategy can look great on paper, but that doesn’t tell you that it will actually work in your real life.

We travel, eat out, have late meetings, take care of family, have a packed calendar, sleep poorly, face an unexpected change in plans.  These are not occasional disruptions.  They’re part of the normal environment your strategy has to operate in.

A strategy that can’t adjust to real life will keep setting you up for failure.

A strategy that works is designed to hold the important pieces in place even when the week looks nothing like you expected

What Flexibility Actually Means

Flexibility doesn’t mean doing whatever feels easiest when life gets busy.  It means deciding ahead of time what matters most and what can change.

Every useful strategy has two parts: non-negotiables and flexibles.  The non-negotiables are the pieces you protect in every scenario.  The flexibles are the pieces that can be reduced, replaced, or adjusted when your week changes.

Examples:

• If you’re normal week includes three strength sessions, a difficult week might include two shorter sessions instead of none.
• If you usually cook most of your meals, a restaurant-heavy week needs a plan for how you make decisions in restaurants.
• If travel changes your meal timing, sleep, and activity. Your strategy needs a travel version that accounts for all of those changes at once.

You decide what matters most and the strategy suppose those priorities when your options get smaller.

Why Deciding Ahead Of Time Changes Follow-Through

When you’re tired, rushed, hungry, or dealing with ten other things, decision-making gets harder.  That’s why the best strategies are built before the difficult week happens.

Researchers call this an implementation intention: deciding in advance what you’ll do when a specific situation shows up.  A meta-analysis of 94 independent tests found that having a plan for when, where, and how you will act had a medium-to large effect on goal achievement.  In plan English, deciding what you will do when a situation happens makes follow through more likely than relying on a general intention to do better. (Implementation Intentions And Goal Achievement: A Meta-Analysis Of Effects And Processes)

Physical activity research supports this as well.  A meta-analysis of 26 studies found that implementation intentions improved physical activity and were more effective when they included barrier management.  Planning when and where to exercise helped, but planning for what might derail the exercise helped more. (A Meta-Analytic Review Of The Effect Of Implementation Intentions On Physical Activity)

The same principle apples to eating behavior.  A meta-analysis of 70 interventions involving 9,689 participants found that implementation intentions improved healthy eating behavior.  The key was specificity.  An intention tied to a real situation give you something to do when that situation shows up. (What Makes Implementation Intention Interventions Effective For Promoting Healthy Eating Behaviours?)

Build A Difficult-Week Version Before You Need It

Take time during a normal week to build a version of your strategy for the weeks that won’t be normal

1. Identify the predictable obstacles. Travel, late nights, packed schedules, restaurant meals, poor sleep.
2. Decide what you’ll protect. Choose two or three non-negotiables.
3. Decide what’ll change. Reduce, replace, or postpone the flexibles.
4. Decide what you’ll do in specific situations.  Example: If a meeting runs through lunch, I’ll have a backup meal ready so I’m not waiting until dinner to eat.

For example, on a week with two late dinners and travel on Friday, your plan might look like this:

• Strength: Two shorter sessions inside of three.
• Food: Use your restaurant decision guidelines and prioritize protein and vegetables.
• Activity: Frida becomes a walking and travel day instead of forcing a normal workout.
• Sleep: Accept that travels nights will be different but protect sleep the rest of the week.

These plans are already made.  You’re not making all of the decisions in the moment when you’re in the thick of indecision.

The Strategy Has To Fit Your Real Life

Life will not organize itself around your chosen strategy, the strategy has to be organized around the life you actually live.

When that’s built in from the beginning, a difficult week don’t automatically become a lost week.  You already know what changes, what stays, and where your attention goes first.

The True Vitality Comprehensive Health Assessment looks at your health alongside your schedule, responsibilities, travel, food, sleep, physical activity, and recovery.  It gives you a clearer way to decide what deserves your attention first and what your strategy needs to look like when life isn’t cooperating.

Learn more about the Comprehensive Health Assessment here.