Q. Josh, I read your blog everyday and I must say it’s refreshing and frustrating. I know achieving my goals can’t be this hard, especially after I made so much progress when I started CrossFit one year ago. Now, it feels like I haven’t gone anywhere for forever. I am happy with my results so far, but I am still overweight and want more. I eat measured Paleo Monday through Saturday night. I have a few drinks on Saturdays, and an old fashioned breakfast Sunday morning. I can’t believe that all my hard work is undone by that little bit of bad. Help!-Julie.

Congratulations on your success. I think your success is whats holding you back now.

Also, I am unsure how much you really read this blog because it seems like you would already know the answer, seems like your fishing for the answer you want to hear not the right answer, but I could be wrong.

I sense comfort in your email above, no real urgency. The kinda comfort that first time success brings. I have seen it a lot, especially when it comes to first time fitness success. Before CrossFit, you were really uncomfortable, so much so you did something about it: CrossFit. Right now, your not exactly ecstatic, but your clearly not as distressed as you once were. Worst of all, your still addicted to things your unwilling to give up.

Your story reminds me of a conversation I recently had. A friend on mine made a joke and said that if he ate a doughnut around me I wouldn’t like him. “That depends,” I said, “if it was just around me and I knew that you didn’t care about your health, then go for it. But if you giving into something as silly as a doughnut made someone else fail, like your wife who struggles with her food addiction, then yes, I would like you less because your not only hurting yourself, your hurting someone else.”

I bet your surrounding yourself with people who look no worse for wear when they stray and have a few after work. And your weekend sessions, no matter how slim are about as clever as an alcoholic entering rehab six days a week and binging on the seventh. It just doesn’t work. The beer on Saturday, those bagels on Sunday, that’s why your not going anywhere. You have done so much damage in the past that even one cheat is one too many, one bagel: poison.

There are many reasons that “cheats” effect everyone differently. If you were really overweight, then not only did you multiply fat cells, but you enlarged them. Now, you must destroy the extra and shrink the rest, and that takes quite some time. Others, like me for instance, just deal horribly with anything less than absolute perfection, meaning any divergence from the right path sets us of course for far too long to be worth it.

Julie I could go on but you get it. Maybe you were born with a “weak stomach” and everything hurts it. Maybe you really let yourself go and it’s going to take time and supreme effort to come back. Maybe those cheat days, those “just-a-bites”, those “excepts”, no matter how small, are all that stands between you and continued success. For your sake, I hope your willing to make such a small change for such a huge return.

3 Things to do right now:

1. Get-up throw out everything in your house that isn’t Paleo.

2. Schedule something on Saturday that isn’t beer with friends.

3. Think of the two people you spend the most time with. If they are the ones willing to have beer and bagels with you, suggest an activity to take it’s place, make it an ultimatum, or leave them behind.

Strength:

Snatch
1×2@75%1RM
1×2@80%1RM
1×2@85%1RM

Clean and Jerk
1×2@75%1RM
1×2@80%1RM
1×2@85%1RM

Skill:

*Pick a skill you need work on. Dedicate (15) minutes to improving it.

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