Why 'Staying Consistent' is Killing Your Progress (And What Actually Works)
By Remi — You don't need a meal plan. You need someone who actually explains why. ·
The Trap of the 'Perfect Streak'
It’s October 2026. The air in Toronto is crisp, the leaves are turning, and I’m seeing the same pattern in my DMs that I see every year. People are panicking because they ‘fell off the wagon.’
Let’s address the elephant in the room: the word consistency has been weaponized against you. We’ve been sold this idea that consistency is a straight line—an unbroken chain of gym sessions, prepped chicken breasts, and perfectly tracked macros. If you miss a day, the chain breaks. If you eat a meal that wasn’t in your spreadsheet, you’ve ‘failed.’
But here’s the thing I learned in grad school, and even more importantly, in my Maman’s kitchen: biology isn’t a spreadsheet. Human life is messy. If your definition of consistency requires you to be a robot, you aren’t failing because you lack discipline; you’re failing because your definition is fundamentally flawed.
Rethink the Rhythm
In my household growing up, food was community. It was a rhythm, not a rigid set of rules. We ate together, we celebrated together, and we nourished our bodies because they were the vehicles that allowed us to live our lives.
When we talk about consistency, we need to stop thinking about a ‘daily streak’ and start thinking about ‘averages over time.’ If you go to the gym three times a week for a year, that is 156 workouts. If you miss a week because you’re sick or you had a family emergency, your body doesn’t suddenly forget the work you put in. You haven’t lost your progress. You’ve just had a week of life.
True consistency isn’t about never missing; it’s about the speed at which you return to your baseline. That’s the ‘why.’ Your body thrives on a long-term trend, not a short-term sprint.
The 'Minimum Viable Action' Strategy
One of the biggest issues I see with my clients is the 'all-or-nothing' mindset. You decide you’re going to hit the gym for an hour, five days a week. You do it for two weeks, then life happens. You miss a session, you feel guilty, you skip the next two, and suddenly you’ve quit entirely.
I want you to try something else. I call it the ‘Minimum Viable Action.’
What is the smallest version of your habit that you can execute even on your worst day? If your goal is to move your body, and you’re exhausted, the ‘minimum’ might be a 10-minute walk or just some mobility work on your living room floor. It’s not about the calorie burn; it’s about the signal you’re sending to your brain: I am still the kind of person who shows up for myself.
When you lower the barrier to entry, you remove the friction that leads to quitting. Consistency isn’t about doing the most; it’s about doing the least amount possible to keep the habit alive when your energy is low.
Why Your Environment Matters More Than Your Willpower
We love to blame our lack of progress on willpower. But willpower is a finite resource. If you’re coming home after a ten-hour shift, your brain is already fried. Expecting yourself to have the discipline to cook a complex, ‘clean’ meal from scratch is setting yourself up for failure.
We need to design your environment to support your goals. I’m not talking about meal prep boxes that sit in your fridge and turn into science experiments by Wednesday. I’m talking about stocking your pantry with things that make ‘good enough’ choices easy.
If you have frozen vegetables, a jar of good sauce, and a protein source you actually like, you can make a meal in ten minutes. That’s not ‘meal prepping’ in the Instagram sense; that’s just grocery store strategy. Stop trying to be a chef, and start being a strategist. When the ‘easy’ choice is also the ‘healthy’ choice, you don’t need willpower. You just need to be hungry.
The Role of Grace in Physiology
I see so many people obsessing over the ‘what’—what to eat, what exercises to do—that they completely ignore the ‘why.’ If you’re constantly stressed about your routine, your cortisol levels are spiking, your sleep quality is dropping, and your body is holding onto that stress.
There is a physiological cost to being a perfectionist.
When you embrace the idea that your health is a lifelong project, you give yourself permission to breathe. If you have a weekend where you eat, drink, and socialize with friends, that is not a setback. That is a human experience. That connection is just as important for your long-term health as the spinach you had on Tuesday.
Don’t view your life as a series of obstacles to your fitness goals. Your life is the goal. Your fitness is just the thing that makes the rest of your life more vibrant, more capable, and more enjoyable.
Moving Forward
Stop chasing the streak. Stop trying to optimize every single meal for maximum efficiency. Start focusing on the long-term averages, build an environment that makes it easy to succeed, and for goodness sake, be kind to yourself when life gets in the way. You are doing just fine.
I’d love to hear how you’re defining your own rhythm lately. Are you still stuck in the ‘all-or-nothing’ trap, or have you found a way to make your habits work with your actual life? Drop a comment below—let’s talk through it.