Jan 8, 2010

Day 26 - The Beck Diet Solution



Day 26 goes hand in hand with Day 25 and still focuses on combatting sabotaging thoughts.  Day 26 is called "Recognize Thinking Mistakes".

Beck says that we have to realise that our thoughts are ideas, not truths.  However, because the thoughts are our own, we convince ourselves they are truths and this leads us to diet-sabotaging behaviours.  She lists 9 common thinking errors.

  1. All or nothing thinking.
  2. Negative fortune telling.
  3. Overly positive fortune telling.
  4. Emotional reasoning.
  5. Mind reading.
  6. Self-deluding thinking.
  7. Unhelpful rules.
  8. Justification.
  9. Exaggerated thinking.
Definitely, I'm guilty of most of these!  All or nothing thinking took me years to overcome and there are times I still fall into the trap and have to remind myself to look at my change in diet and exercise as a lifelong endeavour. In this case, it helps to remind me that there are other things in life I don't do perfectly, but I don't abandon them or give up. I pick myself up, learn from my mistakes and keep plodding along.

Can you imagine ending a relationship of a fight? Or abandoning your child because you realised you made a bad parenting decision? Or quitting your job because you missed a deadline?

I have also been guilty of Unhelpful Rules - this one is so silly when I see it on paper, yet I fell into this mode of thinking so many times!!!  Beck gives the example of "I can't waste food" and "I can't inconvenience my family by cooking healthier meals".

Her remedy to combat misguided thinking?

Take a guess...come on, I know you can get this one!

Based on Day 25's exercise, match the misguided thinking to the sabotaging behaviours/thoughts and come up with responses to review each time these misguided thoughts rear their ugly head.

6 comments:

  1. divad09 January, 2010 00:22

    Wow, number one sure describes me! I may have to purchase this book Enz! You're such a great support...thanks!

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  2. Anonymous09 January, 2010 08:35

    "All or nothing thinking"...I totally have fallen for that way too many times. That has led me into throwing in the towel many days, because of one misstep.

    I'm trying to lose weight I regained for what seems like the millionth time. This time though...I'm trying to do it in a realistic way.

    Good luck to you on your weight loss journey :)

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  3. Kristina09 January, 2010 09:23

    Ive been guilty of all, but #6 and #8 mostly. You dont think that you have thoughts like that (or atleast as often as we really do) until you see it written out like that and then things you have said or thought come flying back into your memory. Ugh! Im gonna have to start posting mantras about....that say Dont Justify and Dont Down Talk Yourself! lol

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  4. Kailey09 January, 2010 10:43

    Wow! I'm guilty of all of them. Eeek! Sometimes you don't even realize what's going on in your own head. I never thought of comparing it to giving up on a child because of a bad parenting mistake. Makes more sense not to give up when you look at it that way.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Amazon Runner09 January, 2010 12:47

    Yowza, sounds like I should give that book a read! Thanks for posting about it.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Anonymous09 January, 2010 17:38

    I am so interested in your posts about how you are getting through this book. Very enlightening.

    ReplyDelete

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