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Day 20 - Beck Diet Solution, Get Back On Track



Darin via Flickr

It happens from time to time – we eat something we’re not supposed to.  An unplanned hamburger, piece of pizza, cake, pie, bowl of ice cream?  Not the end of the world, no one’s perfect.  But how can we put the mistake in perspective so that we don’t freak out and just eat whatever we want for the rest of the day or even longer?

1.    Acknowledge the mistake. As early as possible, own up to the fact you slipped.  Don’t beat yourself up – just say something along the lines of “Ok, so I made a mistake and ate something I wasn’t supposed to.  But if I stop eating now, I won’t gain weight just from this one mistake.”
2.    Recommit yourself.  Re-read this chapter of the book, as well as other parts of the book that will help you refocus.
3.    Draw a symbolic line.  Say “this is where I stop this unplanned eating, right now,” and mark it by getting busy on an activity from your Distractions Chart.
4.    Find ways to give yourself credit.  If at any point you still want to keep eating but you stop, you deserve credit for that!  Don’t feel like a failure – we’re only human after all.  Give yourself some slack.
5.    Don’t succumb to thoughts of failure and hopelessness.  We’re not perfect – we all agree on that, right?  That being said, we’ll make mistakes from time to time on our weight loss journey.  (A good saying I saw in someone’s WW siggie, “if you blow out one tire of your car, would you go and slash the other four tires?”)
6.    Eat normally from here.  Don’t go thinking you have to make up for this by eating nothing for the rest of the day or exercising like crazy.  You don’t have to punish yourself.  Just resume your regular plan.
7.    Learn from your mistake.  Conduct an After Eating Review (AER) and look at what precipitated the mistake.  Maybe you were stressed out, ran into an unexpected trigger, was around a food pusher, wanted to eat like others, etc.  You can talk about this with your diet coach or make new response cards to talk back to any STs involved.

Again, mistakes happen – in weight loss plans just as in general life.  But also put the slip in perspective by looking at how many calories were involved in that mistake – maybe 500?  Remember that to gain even one pound, you have to take in 3,500 calories.  So you won’t gain weight from a 500-calorie mistake.  Don’t go on to let it become a 1,000, 2,000 or even 3,500 calorie mistake.  Draw that line in the sand and stop right now.
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