By: Michael Beiter

A client of mine is a teacher at a local elementary. We have been working together for two months. I asked her how her month went.

She blushed a little before saying, "Well, it wasn't the best."

"How so?" I responded.

"I didn't get all of my food logs done, and I'm two pounds heavier than last month," she replied.

Looking at the scale as a single measure of success is a bad idea for everyone, so we take several measurements. The scale going up scares everyone, so I started measuring as soon as I heard that concern. She gained a few pounds of muscle while losing seven pounds of fat - nothing to worry over.

While measuring her body composition, I asked how many food logs she had finished and how her workout routine went.

"Like twenty-seven logs, and I didn't miss any workouts."

"So you were 25/25 for workouts and 27/30 for food logs. You're a teacher; what would those equate to on a standard grading scale?"

"Two A's," she said as a smile came across her face.

Her guilt and shame for imperfection were lifting before I confirmed any further:

"You strike me as an A student, no surprise there, but where I come from, C's and D's get degrees. The same level of performance will get you plenty lean and healthy while eliminating your self-criticism. You have a margin for improvement to the tune of three food logs. Go ahead if you want to fret over that, but I wouldn't. There is no such thing as perfect in food and fitness; you're as good as it gets. Now run it back again this month."

Perfectionism strikes in many different ways. Grading your food logs, workouts, and hours of sleep on a standard grading scale is a great way to illustrate how you're doing. You'll find that you don't need A's across the board to be healthy. Consistent, mediocre work beats the strive for perfection time and time again.

If A's and F's are on the ends of a bell curve, few people fall into either end. Almost all of us are right in the middle, far from perfect, but equally far from a failure. Enjoy the center; it's comfy here.

Teaching teachers not to be so critical - who would ever have guessed there would be such a need?