Bad weeks still happen to me. Not every week goes to plan, even now, and I don’t expect that to change.
For me, a bad week usually looks something like this. I go off track. I don’t get enough training in outside the BODYCOMBAT classes I teach. I eat out, or there’s a cheeky takeaway. None of it is a disaster on its own, but put together it can leave me feeling like things have slipped.
What has changed over the years is not that the bad weeks stopped. It’s what I do next.
Why 1 bad week used to become a restart
For years, my attempts at getting healthier lasted 4 to 6 weeks before something knocked them over and I was back at the beginning, waiting for the next Monday or the next month to start again.
There’s a name for this pattern. Researchers Janet Polivy and Peter Herman described it as the “what the hell effect”: once you feel you’ve broken the rules, it’s tempting to write off the rest of the day, or the week, and promise yourself you’ll start properly later.
The reassuring part is that 1 bad week doesn’t undo much on its own. A well known study from University College London followed people building new daily habits and found that missing a single opportunity did not materially affect whether the habit formed. What mattered far more was coming back to it.
That’s the shift for me. A bad week is a blip, not a restart.
What I do after a bad week
I review the week ahead every Sunday
Every Sunday I sit down and look at what’s coming: work, the classes I’m teaching, family plans. Then I put my workouts in where they’ll actually fit, the same way I’d book a meeting. If it isn’t in the diary, it tends not to happen.
This is planning with intention rather than hoping. Psychologists call it forming an implementation intention, and studies have found that deciding in advance when and where you’ll do something makes you more likely to follow through than simply meaning to. After a bad week the Sunday review matters even more, because it swaps a vague promise to do better for a specific plan.
I go back to what works
I don’t try anything new or dramatic. I go back to the basics I know work for me, and the biggest one is batch cooking in my slow cooker. It’s my go to when I’m stuck for food options. I can get a good balance of what I need into one pot, and a few meals ready in the fridge means that when the week gets busy, the easy option is also the good one.
Sometimes I fast
After a heavier few days, I sometimes go back to intermittent fasting. For me that usually means I start eating around 1pm or 2pm and finish around 8pm or 9pm. It works for me, but it isn’t for everyone. If you have a medical condition, take regular medication or have had a difficult relationship with food, speak to your GP before trying it, and it shouldn’t be used as a punishment for the week before.
If you’ve just had a bad week
Start by looking back without judging yourself. What got in the way? Was it time, stress, plans changing, or simply a week where you wanted a break? Knowing the cause makes it easier to plan around next time.
Then pick 1 thing that usually works for you and start there. Not everything at once. For me that’s often batch cooking or getting a workout into the diary, but yours might be a walk, making your own lunch or an earlier night.
Finally, give the next 7 days 10 minutes of planning. Put 2 or 3 sessions where they’ll really fit, and think about what you’ll eat on your busiest days.
If you’d like some help with this, I put together the My Journey Starter Workbook for exactly this kind of moment. It has a page for planning your bad week before it happens, and 6 weekly check ins built around the same idea as my Sunday review. It’s an 11 page PDF for £9.
Bad weeks will keep happening, to me and probably to you. The difference is whether they end a run or simply sit inside it.
This is my journey. Yours will be unique.