So, what do you do when you have a relapse or a lapse? The important thing is to learn from it, understand that: “right I’m reaching for alcohol, I’m reaching for chocolate, I’ve eaten a whole loaf of bread” or whatever it is; why have you been driven there in the first place? Stop what you’re doing, don’t let the eating of 1 chocolate bar to turn into “oh I failed, I’m now going to eat 10 chocolate bars.” Why are you doing this? What has led you to reach for something that you feel is not desirable? Is it because you’ve been too restrictive? Have you gone into this saying, “I am never going to eat biscuits again, I’m never going to have a drink of alcohol, I’m never going to have any chocolate”? That’s not what we’re doing at ShowMe.Fit, we’re not being too restrictive. If it’s your birthday, of course you can have a piece of cake. If you’re going out for dinner with friends, of course you can choose what you want from that menu. If you fancy a little bit of chocolate, absolutely have some chocolate. Don’t be too restrictive. What else could you learn? Are you hungry? Have you maybe missed a meal? Have you eaten kind of something that will spike your blood sugars loads? Have you had some fizzy drinks that will lead you to hunger? What has led you to this lapse? Is there anything you can learn from it? Have you had a really stressful day at work? In which case, what can you do now? Stop, look, listen and learn from this. What can you do tomorrow? Forget about what’s happening now… What can you do tomorrow to stop that lapse becoming a total collapse and a “I can’t do this” mindset? So just relax… Secondly is calm down. Quite often, if we have a lapse, some people are different, but we will either eat really quickly to almost forget. We kind of trick your brain into thinking ‘I’m not doing this’ so you’ll eat really quickly. Or you might eat secretively away from other people. They might hide the wrappers. They might then overeat so it’s really important to calm down. If you’re tense, it will stop all rational thinking. I think that breathing exercises are brilliant, they help release relieve tension. I go on about breathing exercises quite a bit. If you are in a really stressed state and sometimes a lapse can put you in a very stressed state, you’re going to be doing shallow breathing and that is really hard, so you need to take a moment, understand that you’re having this lapse and really look at what you’re doing and how you are breathing. Really breathe deeply, slow down. We’ve got some mindful techniques that Tammy put up, some breathing exercises and yoga. All of this will really help you to calm down. You also want to look at why you doing ShowMe.Fit. This isn’t a quick fix diet, this is helping you and teaching you healthy habits. What are you doing this diet or plan for? Why are you doing it now? I did a Wellness vision with everyone as a coaching tool, so you’re basically creating your best self. This is on the habits talk has been uploaded here. This is a really important thing, this is a vision of why you are doing this plan, how you are going to be once you’ve done everything. You also want to do something like boost your motivation. Quite often, when we lapse where we feel bad, we don’t like ourselves. So we need to talk to ourselves much more positively rather than beating ourselves up about it. Refer back to this list of why you started this journey in the first place and move forward. We’re learning from the experience but also what have you learned? Looking at the stop, look and listen, we are very much looking at what you’re learning from there. So what can you do differently next time? Was it a really stressful day at work that led you then to reaching for the alcohol? How can you change that next time you have a really stressful day at work? Could you, rather than come home stressed in your car, could you come home and go immediately out for a walk to distress before and then come back into your kitchen, in your home in a much better frame of mind? Also make sure that you speak to people… We’ve got a really supportive Facebook group now which is everything! You are not alone in having a lapse… There will be other people that are also feeling this so don’t be ashamed. Reach out, get some help from one of us. Tag me if you need assurance but there’s so many people now that are absolutely brilliant on that Facebook group. We’ve all been there, we’ve all done it, none of us are perfect. You are not dealing with this alone. I think that’s really important to understand… you are not alone in this. You’re not the only person that has lapses. Gregg talks about “being good enough is absolutely good enough”, you don’t need to be perfect. This is teaching you for life, not perfection.