Welcome to the next installment of the Bloggy Beck Book Club!
This weeks assignment was to work on the first four Success Skills in Dr. Beck’s book. These four skills are:
- Motivate Yourself Daily
- Weigh Yourself Daily
- Eat Slowly, While Sitting Down and Enjoying Every Bite
- Give Yourself Credit
I’ll be honest, while I read the skills, several times for that matter, I did a horrendous job at working on them. This week I am going to focus on doing each of the four skills. Dr. Beck reiterates numerous times in this section that learning these skills and making them a part of your daily routine takes practice and repetition
Don’t go too quickly! Dieters progress at different speeds. For example, eating everything sitting down is quite easy for people who already have this habit. Others may need to spend days (or longer) mastering this skill. Most dieters need to practice coping with hunger, cravings, and emotional eating many times before they get really good at managing them. But remember: No matter what the skill is, the more you practice it, the easier it gets.”
I know for me, weighing myself daily is an easy thing, it’s a habit (except on mornings where I’m running around like a chicken with my head cut off!) The other three skills are absolutely going to take more work for me, particularly Success Skill 3, “Eat Slowly, While Sitting Down and Enjoying Every Bite.” This one is going to be incredibly hard for me in regards to breakfast and lunch. Dinner I do sit down and we eat together, granted, we need to turn off the TV during this time, but at least we are seated and usually having a conversation. Breakfast and lunch, I eat them at my desk at work. I work while I eat so that I can leave earlier, which means I avoid some of the traffic (hello…DC has INSANE traffic!) I do a good job of eating these two meals slowly though, sometimes it takes me 30 minutes to eat my breakfast.
Another success skill that I tend to have problems with is Success Skill 4 “Give Yourself Credit”
Successful dieters continually put the focus on what they are doing right. They tell themselves, Good job (or the equivalent), whenever they practice a Success Skill and stick to their eating plan.”
I know I need to work on this skill. I tend to focus on the negatives and not the positives. I look at the 32 lbs that I’ve lost and instead of seeing those pounds lost, I think about the fact that it’s taken me as long as it has, and that 20 pounds has been off and on. The reality is, that 32 pounds is a lot of weight to lose, it’s almost 25% of my way to goal weight. I could be 32 pounds in the other direction if I hadn’t decided to focus on my health.
All of these are skills that are really skills for life, not just dieting. I think a lot of people don’t give themselves enough credit for their successes, go too fast in everyday life and forget the advantages of what they are trying to obtain; why is their goal their goal?
Discussion Points:
-
What are your advantages? What is it that keeps you working towards your goal (whether if it’s losing weight or something else)?
-
Weigh Yourself Daily. This is a potentially controversial topic. There are a lot of people who don’t weigh daily because they become obsessed with the scale. The theory behind weighing daily is that you desensitize yourself to the number, that the number is just that, a number. Dr. Beck compares the number on the scale to that on a thermometer. You know you have an issue when your fever is up and that you need to take care of yourself, same with the scale.
-
Eat Slowly. How are you going to focus on this? What in your life gets in the way to making this a skill that is tough to master. What have you done to make this skill a habit for those of you that are successful with this.
-
Give yourself credit. How do you give yourself credit? How do you continue to work on focusing on the positive instead of focusing on poor choices and mis-steps in your weight loss plan?
Next week you will be heading over to Bella’s site for the weekly Bloggy Beck Book Club Meeting. The topics for next week will be Success Skills 5-9.
I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts!
Tata for now,
Scale Warfare
I am currently not weighing in every day since I’ve been having some issues with becoming focused on the number. I know the point is to realize that the numbers do not define me and I have that written on my response card but I’m still dealing with it. I’m trying to focus more on how I feel rather than living for the moment in the morning when I step on the scale.
Eating slowly however has been going well! I am taking the time to sit and enjoy what I’m eating, even if I’m eating on the run I try to sit and name three things about the thing I’m eating that I can taste or smell or how I feel while eating it.
Giving myself credit has been a struggle. I’m really hard on myself most of the time and feel weak for not being able to do this effortlessly. Yeah I get that is silly but at the same time I feel like I’m failing. I’m working on it and thankfully have support at home that reminds me how far I’ve actually come this year.
All in all I’m doing okay with the skills, I do feel that thinking about it has changed a lot of my perceptions, but I still have a lot of work to do!
I think that last one is definitely the hardest. Ok, I’m not always great about #3 either but #4 is my kryptonite. Every time I do something that I should justifiably be proud of, I start thinking, ‘well, it’s not that big of a deal because ____ can do _____”. #2 is key to keeping me on track. I had a few days in a row of not-so-great choices in the last week and avoided the scale. I finally stepped on it yesterday and was able to make much better decisions all day long because of it. #1 is probably the easiest for me- I read all my favorite blogs and it pumps me up to know that others are in the (relatively) same boat that I am. Even if we are all having off days.
It’s essential to stay positive. Affirmations and positive self-talk fuel our success. And success keeps us motivated and empowered, right? You’ve got this!
Pingback: I Suck… « Seattlerunnergirl's Blog
I’m a slacker for not getting here yesterday – I’m sorry!
I think we have similar struggles with these skills. For example, one thing I really ENJOY is making dinner and then sitting down to eat it slowly while watching TV. I think the line I’m realizing is that if I make the food ahead of time and mentally “close the kitchen” after that, it’s not such a bad thing. But if I am struggling emotionally, then I can slide into just inhaling food in front of the TV, which is so NOT helpful!
Giving myself credit is something I’m really working on, and I think it goes hand-in-hand with being more grateful each and every day. Remembering all the things we’re doing RIGHT is a great way to reinforce those behaviors, but it’s sometimes really hard to do! Especially if you’re a Type A, goal-oriented person like I am.
This week the advantages that I’m focusing on are:
1. To live the life I want to live.
2. To be healthy, strong, and athletic.
3. To look cuter (yes, superficial, but I’m all about being honest!)
Looking forward to hearing everyone else’s comments!
Excellent discussion Scale Warfare! Thank you for giving us so much to think about this week.
Right now my favorite advantage is:
1. Fitting comfortably into the seat of an airplane!
This is top of mind for me because I’ll be flying in April and I really don’t want to ask for a seat belt extender!
I did well with all four skills and believe I am building a strong foundation on which to move forward. I do struggle occasionally with Eating Slowly or eating while not distracted. Most days I eat lunch at my desk while reading your blogs, tracking stuff on SparkPeople and generally catching up with my online life. Not ideal but I do pause to savor the food!
For dinner I set the table and my husband and I eat together. I turn on music, dim the lights and we just chill out. I will set down my fork between bites, sip water/wine, or even move the food around my plate for a second or two all to slow me down. The biggest change for us is we don’t eat dinner away from the table or in front of the TV.
I give myself credit by sharing my successes with my online support group, writing them down in my Beck memory book and sharing them with my husband. Although, I have to be careful with this last one since he really doesn’t understand why I can’t just stop eating and start moving and thus lose weight. Well, he’s RIGHT I can do these things but many days I make it much more complicated than it needs to be.
I have found re-reading my response cards and advantage cards throughout the day really helps me focus on the positive changes I’m making instead of dwelling on poor choices and “mis-steps.”
Affirmation:
I easily make healthy choices every day.
I used to avoid the scale like the plague, but once I started doing photos of my weekly weigh-ins on my blog, I really began to look forward to it. Moving to daily weigh-ins wasn’t a natural thing for me to do, but I am enjoying the information I’m getting. I like learning about my body’s natural ebbs and flows, because it helps me predict my weekly weight loss.
I, too, am a perfectionist, so I’m not that great at giving myself credit. I am working on it by trying to focus on NSVs (non-scale victories).
I sit down to eat all of my meals, although I often eat dinner in front of the t.v. This is a hard habit to break, since I live alone, but this week I’ll try to eat in my breakfast nook while reading, as I do at breakfast. I usually eat my lunch at my desk, but I do it while reading blogs, so I consider that time well spent. I eat slowly at all meals, especially lunch. I often can’t finish my lunch in the 35 minutes we get at work.
Thanks for writing such an thoughtful recap of these skills.
Wow, it sounds like a lot of us struggle a bit with taking credit for our good choices. Any interest in making that something we work on together? Either via a “challenge” format or otherwise?
I think that is a fantastic idea. Maybe mini gift packs or something to send to one another when little goals are reached? (Maybe a book, or a fun nail polish, or something small and simple like that?) What do you think?
I would totally be up for that! Especially if we all put our money where our mouth is. i.e., everybody ponies up $5, the winner gets it all (or a gift certificate in that amount, or each participant sends something of that value to the winner). Hmmm…this week? Bella?