A practical guide to making your healthy habits stick even when your week doesn’t go according to plan.
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I think a LOT of women think they struggle with “staying on track” (maybe you do too??) when really they just don’t know HOW to be flexible yet.
Because flexibility is not one skill.
She says while throwing together a turkey-and-cheese quesadilla for lunch because the day got away from her, and she knows she can get more fiber in later. 🤪
FLEXIBILITY IS A BUNCH OF LITTLE SKILLS STACKED TOGETHER
→ It’s learning how to adapt your food to the day you’re actually having.
→ It’s zooming out to see the whole day (or week) instead of making one meal or workout mean so much.
→ It’s adding something when you can, and not stressing when you can’t.
→ It’s making the most of what’s available instead of deciding anything less than ideal is pointless.
👏 👏 👏
And if you don’t know what flexibility looks like or what you’re supposed to practice then of courseeeee “staying on track” feels impossible.
…Spend hours on Sunday planning the perfect week
…Monday goes exactly according to plan (she’s thriving!!)
…Tuesday someone gets sick, a meeting runs late, etc
…Try your best to adjust, but feel guilty because it wasn’t the plan
…Spend the whole day figuring out how to make up for it
…Decide the week already feels “off”
…Promise yourself you’ll be better tomorrow
…And assume: “Welp…fuck it. I guess I just can’t stay consistent.”
😭
But that’s not it!! You just haven’t built the skillset to be flexible YET.
I thought being “consistent” meant following the plan exactly as I made it. So even when I technically kept going, I couldn’t let the adjusted version count.
- A shorter walk? What?! I might as well do nothing.
- A thrown-together lunch? Welp, let me just declare the entire day ruined.
- A terrible night’s sleep? Weeeeee, guess it’s just going to be a bad day!!
☠️☠️☠️
I made everything SO much harder on myself and, ironically because of that, I was way less healthy than I am now.
I was working harder, thinking about food and workouts CONSTANTLY and still feeling like I could never get it right.
The difference wasn’t that I finally found the perfect routine. I finally learned how to adjust without burning the whole thing down!!!
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Which is exactly why we created 542.
We give you 5 healthy habits built around your current goal and then spend 42 days practicing how to keep them going inside your actual life. Especially when the day looks nothing like the plan.
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Now, to all my friends reading this and thinking: “No, but I’m just a control freak.” OR: “I could never. I’m way too Type A.”
Eeeehhh, watch out for that.
You might be Type A. You might love control. (Hi, welcome, you’re among friends 😂)
But flexibility is still a SKILL!
Again and again and AGAIN I will say this until I’m blue in the face!!!
It is NOT some magical quality that naturally chill people were born with and the rest of us simply missed out on.
So how do you build a new skill?
Unfortunately, you have to PRACTICE. Which is what I did.
And when y’all ask me what my workout routine is, how I eat, what I do to look the way I do or how I’ve stayed so healthy… you think the answer is the routine.
It isn’t. I learned how to be flexible.
And that is GOOD news for you because you don’t need my lifestyle, a certain amount of money or a perfect schedule to do it.
Flexibility is HOW you take care of yourself without needing any of those things.
But this is where most advice gets maddeningly vague:
“Give yourself grace. Listen to your body. Just be flexible!”
Okayyyy…but HOW?!
How do you know when taking the shorter walk is the smart adjustment and when you’re avoiding the workout?
How do you make a thrown-together meal work without deciding nutrition doesn’t matter?
How do you let the smaller version count without worrying that you’re slowly lowering your standards into the ground?
And for the love of Godddd how do you miss a few days without either forcing yourself to make them up or disappearing until next Monday?
Those are the actual skills.
And because no one becomes flexible by simply understanding the concept, let’s get extremely practical about how you practice them.
💌 Okay, let’s actually teach you how to do this
Below the paywall, I’m breaking down the flexibility skills that finally helped me stop burning everything down every time life changed the plan:
- How to create multiple versions of a habit without turning the smallest version into your new ceiling
- How to decide when to push yourself and when adjusting is actually the healthier choice
- My exact “the day went to shit” process for food, movement and everything else
- How to zoom out when one meal or missed workout suddenly feels VERY IMPORTANT
- The difference between adjusting, avoiding and abandoning
The full flexibility playbook is below for paid Kitchen Table members - including the scripts, examples and exact process I use in my own life.