Diet Rehab: 28 Days to Finally Stop Craving the Foods That Make You Fat (9 page)

Pitfall #3: Paralysis-Analysis

This pitfall involves getting stuck in your own thoughts, trying to analyze what’s wrong with you every time a sad, angry, or unpleasant feeling surfaces. Of course, sometimes it’s appropriate to try to figure out a problem or solve a difficult situation. But if you’ve thought about that problem all you can and either there isn’t any solution or there isn’t one that you can implement right away, sometimes it’s simply better to distract yourself than to ruminate.

PITFALL THOUGHTS:
“What does it mean about me that I can’t lose weight?”
“I wonder if my coworker is angry at me. I wonder why it took her so long to answer that e-mail today—what does that mean?”
“I’m feeling blue, and I’m going to sit here thinking about why until I feel better.”

REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
“I’ve done all I can today to work on my weight-loss issues—now I’m going to take a bath and read a good book and forget about it!”
“It’s eight p.m., and I’m spending my precious free time analyzing my work situation! I’m going to enjoy this beautiful night and take my dog for a walk before bed.”
“I’m feeling blue, so I’m going to work in the garden. That always cheers me up.”

If you feel that you tend to get stuck in your own thoughts, here’s my suggestion: Give yourself a time limit to think about something and set a timer. Check in with yourself when the timer rings and ask yourself honestly, “Am I making any progress in solving this problem?”

If the answer is “no,” say to yourself—aloud if necessary—“I can come back to this later.” Then go do something else that will distract you from your thoughts. If you find this difficult, make a list of good “distractors” and when you get “paralysis-analysis,” look at the list. Who knows? Maybe the solution to your problem will come to you when you’re busy doing something else—it often happens that way! Or maybe your problem
has
no solution, but you can feel better anyway.

Pitfall #4: Pessimism

Pessimism in this context means believing the worst-case, catastrophic scenario. If there is good evidence to think that something won’t work or that danger is approaching, then by all means, take appropriate action. But when pessimism is your default response to any setback, it may be time to reframe your thoughts. Don’t confuse what’s possible with what’s probable.

PITFALL THOUGHTS:
“I gained some weight this week—I can’t make this diet work and am going to have a heart attack.”
“Relationships don’t work out for me, so I bet this one won’t, either. I’m going to be alone forever, and then what will I do when I’m sixty?”
“I went on a job interview, but I’m sure I won’t get this or any other job. What if I can’t pay my mortgage next year?”

REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
“I gained some weight this week—but I haven’t really given Diet Rehab a chance yet. Although it’s possible that I could have a heart attack, I’m not experiencing any critical symptoms right now. I’ve also consulted my physician, and she said the best thing I can do for my health is lose weight.”
“I’m a different person than the last time I was in a relationship, so let’s see what happens now.”
“I don’t know whether I’ll get the job or not, but I won’t stop trying until I find
something
I like. Although it’s possible I won’t find a job for a whole year and lose the house, it’s not probable. I’ve never gone a year without finding a job.”

Pessimists are always imagining the worst-case scenario, in which any setback can easily be seen as the beginning of a catastrophe. This thinking leads to depression, anxiety, and despair. Optimists take a different approach: They imagine good possibilities that
might
happen, whether or not they ever do. Imagining these happy possibilities often gives optimists the energy to explore them, which means that optimists often end up creating good outcomes in their lives, simply because they were committed to finding a way to make the best of things or to see potential in a difficult situation. Whenever possible, they think, “Maybe it will be all right,” or “I’m sure there’s some good that can come from this”—and frequently, because of their positive attitude, they see possibilities to pursue that pessimists might miss.

I’m not suggesting you become a Pollyanna, blind to genuine dangers or tragedies. But I do encourage you to develop an optimistic explanatory style and that you find a way of talking yourself out of pessimistic thinking, rather than deeper into it. Creating a “can-do, can-deal-with” attitude can really help you when times are tough.

Pitfall #5: Polarization

Polarization is seeing things in terms of “either/or”: black or white, yes or no, on or off. Instead of seeing that there are lots of possibilities, polarization is a pitfall in which you can only imagine “It’s working” or “It’s not working.” That means if something isn’t working perfectly, you tend to believe it isn’t working at all—and probably never will.

PITFALL THOUGHTS:
“I didn’t lose weight this week—my whole diet is a failure. In fact, I should go on a different diet tomorrow.”
“If Terry doesn’t understand this point, then this relationship is not going to work out.”
“I will probably never get the respect I deserve at my current job—I obviously should quit.”

REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
“I didn’t lose weight this week—but I did two booster activities and feel like I made some healthy choices. I think I’m taking baby steps and making progress, even though I have a long way to go.”
“Terry and I clearly see things differently when it comes to this. But we do usually agree on things. Maybe this is going to have to be an ‘agree to disagree’ situation.”
“I think I could do more to earn respect at my job—perhaps I’ll find ways to seek out additional responsibilities or have a well-timed conversation with my boss next week.”

Giving up polarization does not mean that you stop taking negative factors into account. It means that you put them in context. When we’re trying to make lots of changes, we often take two steps forward and one step backward, or sometimes even one step forward and
two
steps backward. Seeing the situation in a polarized way means we’re far too excited about the progress—and then far too disappointed when we take that backward step. If we can reframe our thinking to accommodate all the different possibilities, we can operate on a more even keel.

Pitfall #6: Psychic

This is the frame of mind in which we’re sure we know what another person is thinking, we believe
he or she
should know what
we’re
thinking and what we need, and we also think we know the future. In other words, we are
sure
of a lot of things that we actually can’t really know.

PITFALL THOUGHTS:
“If he cared about me, he’d see I was struggling and help me by eating healthy foods with me.”
“She’s not going to understand why I can’t bring dessert to the party.”
“I know if I go, everyone will be thinking how fat I am.”

REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
“I’m going to tell him just how hard this really is for me, and I bet if I asked him to support me by trying a few booster foods, too, he would.”
“She may or may not understand, but let me try explaining it to her and asking for her support—she might surprise me!”
“I feel self-conscious, but I have no idea what other people are thinking about me or even if they’re thinking about me at all.”

Giving up our “psychic” pitfall thinking can be very difficult because it often feels as though we’re giving up our claim to know the truth and to protect ourselves. Sometimes our instincts are right on target and we have to listen to them; sometimes another person has hurt or disappointed us repeatedly, and we have to protect ourselves from trusting them again.

Sometimes, though, we’re just living inside our own fears, wishes, and projections, and what we “know” is not the truth at all but merely a story we’ve imagined. Being rigorous with yourself about what you know and don’t know—or at least about being open to the possibility that you might not know—is a good antidote for this “psychic” pitfall. Committing to telling other people what we’d like them to do in positive and specific language—as opposed to telling them what they’re
not
doing in vague terms—is another good reframing device.

Pitfall #7: Permanence

Another name for this pitfall is “using the past or present to judge the future.” I personally struggle a lot with this one. If I try something a few times and it doesn’t work out, I have a hard time believing that it will
ever
work out, even when logic and rationality tell me that I’m giving up way too soon. I’m also prone to think, “I’ve always been this way—I can’t change,” even though I have the privilege to watch people’s transformations every single day in my practice. Permanence also makes us feel like the bad way we’re currently feeling will
always
be the way we feel—which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we’re less likely to take action that will create change.

PITFALL THOUGHTS:
“I’ve never been able to do lose weight, so I’m just doomed to be fat forever.”
“I feel so sad and lonely. I’m always going to feel like this.”
“I’ve never had a management job—I’m just not that kind of person.”

REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
“Although I’ve never lost weight before, I’ve found a new approach to eating that just might work.”
“Even though I feel sad and lonely right now, I’m doing things to change it. I remember feeling this way ten years ago, and even though things looked just as bad then, I did get out of that funk.”
“I don’t know if I want a management job—but it might be fun to see if some of my inherent strengths combined with learning new skills may make me a terrific manager.”

It’s very tempting to judge the future by the past, especially because that makes us the expert. We
know
what happened in the past, so now we can
know
what’s going to happen in the future. We can protect ourselves from disappointment and maybe even avoid the hard work of transformation and growth.

I urge you to resist the lure of the “permanence” pitfall. Instead, accept that the future is unknown and that you have both the opportunity and the responsibility to create the life you want.

Booster Attributes: The 7 Ps to Master

Just as pitfall thoughts erode your brain chemistry, booster qualities
improve
your brain chemistry. In fact, the more of these booster attributes you fill your life with, the fewer pitfall thoughts you will have. All of the booster activities actually target one or more of these booster attributes, so by the end of twenty-eight days, you will look back and realize your serotonin or dopamine booster activities have created a life rich with these seven booster attributes. It’s also easier to sustain booster qualities when you have sufficient serotonin and dopamine—a nice example of an
upward
spiral!

Here are the seven booster attributes:

Booster Attribute #1: Purpose

Filling our lives with purpose is the best way to cultivate lasting and meaningful happiness. Why are you here? What’s your life’s purpose on this planet? What do you think you’ll remember most when you’re looking back on your life? My guess is that you’ll remember your relationships, the times you made a difference in the world—even on a small scale—and the work you did, paid or unpaid, that was your chance to express yourself. These things have the greatest impact on your well-being and lasting happiness. They are also the behaviors that give you lasting surges of serotonin and dopamine. If you can switch from asking “What do I want out of life?” to asking “What does life want out of me?” you may be surprised at how rich and full of possibilities your life suddenly seems.

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