Audios to help you change your thinking about taking care of your body: Thinking Your Way to a Healthy Weight.
"I don't have any willpower."
"I'm weak."
"I'm lazy."
"I can't do it."
Do these statements sound familiar? Too often, our self-statements about weight management interfere
with our efforts and lead to failure. By changing how we think about developing a healthy weight we
are able to change the behaviors that can lead to success.
Not long ago I conducted a little experiment with my cardio-kickboxing class. After an intense class
I told them to get the heaviest weights they could curl 8-10 times. I spent a minute telling them to
focus on feeling tired, that they had just worked out hard and they couldn't do anymore. Then, they
were to curl the weights to exhaustion. Once they finished, I spent another minute telling them to
focus on having energy, feeling good, feeling refreshed, and knowing they could do more. Once again,
they lifted the weights to exhaustion. The results were that out of nine people, only one did fewer
lifts the second time! And typically, when someone lifts weights to exhaustion they should not be able
to lift as much the second time when it is only a minute later. Although this was not a controlled
scientific experiment, it was a demonstration to my class to show how powerful our thinking can be.
What this exercise showed was how positive thinking overcame the natural exhaustion of the body and
created a self-fulfilling prophecy of lifting more weight because the participants believed that they could.
How does this demonstration apply to achieving a healthy weight? Take a moment and write down or
upon all the thoughts that come to mind when you think about dieting or losing weight. Now note
how many of those thoughts are negative. Several typical categories of thinking emerge when people
record their thoughts about dieting. These include perfectionistic thinking, negative evaluation
and labeling, generalization, and focus on failure. By recognizing and changing these thought
patterns you could be on your way to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight.
Perfectionistic Thinking
One of the most prevalent thought patterns about weight in our society
is an over-emphasis on perfection. We are confronted repeatedly with the focus on beauty and
thinness. Commercials, television shows, movies all have a preponderance of attractive people
seeming to indicate such beauty is the norm. For instance, watch a TV show set on a beach in
Florida and then go to the beach yourself. Do the people look the same? When I go to the beach
I see people of all body types and sizes but on most television shows that is not what they show
unless it is part of the story line. Especially notice how beautiful the women are on national
television news shows these days; although the news has always emphasized attractiveness of the
female anchor, it seems that they are now required to be a model first. So, all around us we
are presented these images as if this is how we should look.
No wonder we develop unrealistic expectations about our appearance. The problem with these
perfectionistic expectations is that they are likely to sabotage any efforts we make towards
maintaining a healthy weight. When demands are difficult or impossible to meet, we tend to
take a defeatist attitude and quit. “I can't look like that anyway, so why even try?”
In addition, perfectionism tends to be all-or-nothing so that if we evaluate our success
according to whether we achieved the perfectionistic goal or not rather than evaluating
success upon improvement. For instance, I knew a women who had successfully lost 85 pounds
but because she didn't achieve her goal weight by the date she had set for herself she became
discouraged and, quit dieting, and put half of the weight back on. Too often, when people
want to lose weight they set extreme calorie limits and exercise goals that they are unlikely
to meet. As soon as they fail one day, they give up.
However, if we can focus on making small improvements that are realistic and manageable we are
more likely to be successful. Also, we need to set goals that are not so concrete. Instead
of “I will exercise for an hour everyday” we can state “I will increase my activity level.”
Instead of “I won't eat any sweets” we can set a goal of “I will thoroughly enjoy any treat
I eat and not eat snacks mindlessly.” Instead of “I will restrict my calories to 1200 a day”
we can decide to write down whatever we eat so as to be more aware of food intake.
Negative Evaluation and Labeling
Frequently, people tend to overly focus on the negative
when trying to change a behavior. We learn these attitudes from the messages around us and
then they influence our behavior. For instance, at one time I used to believe the societal
attitude of “I'm weak and unmotivated” because I was obese. As a result, I never set any
realistic goals for myself regarding weight because I knew I would fail because I didn't have
what it takes. Well, what I didn't have was a healthy belief system about myself and my
weight problem. One day, however, I thought about that statement: “I'm weak and unmotivated.”
As I thought about it, I began to realize how inaccurate it was. Other evidence in my life
clearly indicated that I was motivated: I obtained a Ph.D., I had conducted and published
research, I developed and ran a successful business, I was involved with my son's school and
other interests. These certainly weren't indicators of an unmotivated person. I also realized
I wasn't weak: I had confronted numerous personal stressors in my life and didn't back away
from problems. So, based on this self-assessment, I changed my thinking to “I have a problem
with weight control.” This thinking was not so global and overwhelming. It did not make me
feel bad about myself generally because it was more specific and confined. Therefore, I was
able to think of becoming more healthy in a manageable way rather than being overwhelmed
with all the negative emotions related to “I'm weak and unmotivated.”
Examine how you label and evaluate yourself by listing the thoughts you have about dieting,
weight loss, or achieving a healthy weight. Then, ask yourself, “Are these accurate
statements?” What evidence can you find from other areas of your life that show how
these statements may be inaccurate? Then, determine what you can say to yourself instead
that doesn't make you feel as bad. Finally, say it! As frequently as you can remind yourself
of the accurate challenges: “No, I'm not weak and unmotivated, weight loss is a difficult
challenge for me.”
Generalization
Many years ago when I taught a smoking cessation class, we explained to the
students “There is no failure as long as you keep trying. The more times you attempt to quit,
the more likely you will quit.” Too often, when people think about losing a weight they think,
“I've tried before. It's never worked. It won't work this time. So, why bother trying?”
And certainly, it probably won't work this time if we continue to generalize from past
experiences. However, just because something hasn't worked in the past, doesn't mean nothing
will ever work. Thomas Edison stated when working on his invention of the light bulb “I have
not failed. I just found 10,000 ways that won't work.”
If you have found ways that won't work, that doesn't mean that you will fail in the future.
Try something else. Determine why something didn't work for you and change it. If your goal
was too demanding, make it more realistic. If you can't give up chocolate, how do you fit
it into your diet? If exercise is boring, how can you be more active in a fun way?
Focus on Failure
Although this concept is closely related to the perfectionistic thinking
and the negative evaluation and labeling, it deserves a comment separately. In particular,
people tend to focus on the outcome rather than on the process which allows a greater focus
on failure. For instance, if you are trying to lose weight, a focus on the outcome is based
on how much you gained or lost in a particular week. If you gained or the loss was not enough,
you feel like you failed. “I wanted to lose a pound, but I only lost a half pound.” However,
the focus on the process allows you to examine more of what you achieved: “I have been eating
healthier foods this week and not over-doing the snacks.” This type of thinking is more likely
to lead to continued effort as opposed to the focus on failure.
Changing Thinking
The key to changing thinking is to first be aware of your thinking.
A useful technique is to write down the thoughts that you have regarding your weight and
attempts to manage it. Then determine what type of thinking error may be involved:
perfectionistic thinking, negative evaluation and labeling, generalization, or focus on failure.
Once you have determined the type of thinking, you can then develop an evidence list that
shows the inaccuracy of the thinking. This allows you to develop a rational challenge to
the thoughts that you can use whenever they occur.
By working on challenging your thinking you are likely to remove some of the roadblocks
that interfere with achieving and maintaining a healthy weight. So much of our ability
to achieve any goal starts with how we think of ourselves and our ability to succeed.
Copyright © 2010
by
Excel At Life, LLC.
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