Every now and again I have a little think about what I could do differently to get the most from my Physical Life. A while ago I felt that I had developed a bad habit of drinking too many energy drinks and I began to feel uneasy about how many chemicals they contained. I have never been a coffee drinker but thought that surely a natural food was preferable to the chemical laden drinks I was having. So I decided to give coffee a go. The only problem was that I do not like the taste of coffee and can only enjoy it when it is sweet. So I put a couple of sachets of sweetener I liberated from the gym’s drinks station into my coffee. It did not take long, however, for me to tumble to the fact that really I was just replacing one chemical for another! I then spotted a large Tupperware of white sugar in the gym’s “kitchen”. Hmmm, I thought, surely one teeny weenzy spoonful of sugar a day won’t harm me? So that’s what I did. A cup of (instant!!) coffee and a spoonful of sugar. All natural and delicious. Case solved. Or so I thought. A month or so later I was boiling the 6am kettle and reached for the Tupperware of sugar. The only problem was.......there was no sugar! It was empty! OMFG!!!! I HAD EATEN A WHOLE TUPPERWARE OF WHITE SUGAR!! The moral of this story is that the small things we do on a daily basis all add up and eventually have a big impact on our lives. I hear my clients saying the same things over and over again; It was just a few chips. I only had a handful. Surely a small dessert won’t hurt. And on one level they are right. Having “just a few chips” won’t hurt, but if you have “just a few” on a regular basis then it will undoubtedly have a negative impact on your progress. “Don’t sweat the small stuff” is a well known phrase which in some aspects of life is good advice. Worrying about saving a few quid on your broadband bill is not worth the stress of changing it. Not in this instance however. Nutritionally, once you have established the broader principles of dieting then it becomes all about the details. Sweat the small stuff.