Day 19 - Beck Diet Solution, Stop Fooling Yourself

By Lbeaumont (Own work) via creativecommons.org

It can be amazing, the fluff we come up with when we want to sell ourselves on straying from our food plans:

It’s not a whole piece.
Just this once.
I’ll end up eating it anyway.
I don’t care.
I’ve had a hard day.
Someone will be disappointed.
It’s wrong to waste food.
It’s a special occasion.
It’s free.
It’s just crumbs.
No one will see me.
I’ll just eat less later.

But as Cher says in Moonstruck, “Snap out of it!” A calorie is a calorie, no matter when, where or why we eat it.

(“But-but-but-”) We could come up with all kinds of rebuttals, such as that our diet lets us eat unlimited quantities of certain food. But if that food is not planned out, even if it’s just celery, we’re headed for trouble. It’s not the food, it’s the mindset. When we go off our plans, we’re strengthening that mindset that says it’s ok to eat whatever, whenever.

But it’s not ok. If it were, would we need to lose weight or constantly be on a dieting yo-yo? So we need to shut down those thoughts deluding us that it’s ok to go off our plans. And we do that by creating a card entitled It’s Not Okay. On this card we can write a few helpful responses to the delusional thoughts we’re most prone to, like “I don’t care.” Well we might not care in the throes of a craving but we will very much care when we gain weight. The book gives you a very good sample card.

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