negative thinking gets in the way of success

gracegettingittogether wrote: »

I also have about 65 lbs to lose. I’ve lost about 13 already. What helps me to keep going, when those thoughts start to swirl, is to look at myself and think “You can either continue to eat the way you were and continue to look and feel the way you are, or you can change the way you eat, and thus, look and feel. But you can’t eat like this and expect any change to how you look now. What is worth more to you, changing the way you eat or changing the way you look and feel?” The honest answer to that question will determine what you do. Only you can answer that question and change or not change, what you will. It’s entirely up to us, what our course of action is. It’s a very clear choice too, actually. And there have been many times in my life, where my answer was, I want to keep eating the way I am. And that is why I still have 60-70 lbs to lose.

88olds wrote: »

Great post. Pardon me if I ramble. There’s a lot here.

First, never mind the name of the board, but motivation is overrated. Fact is motivation is fleeting. I think we’d be better served if the board was named Determination & Persistence. If we’re going to be successful we can’t just do our plan when it feels good.

It takes 2 things to lose weight- a calorie deficit and the ability to live with it long term. Don’t kick yourself for having your calories set at 1/2 lb. There’s a tendency to go all in on an aggressive deficit and then try to beat ourselves into living with it. Read this board a lot and you’ll see that doesn’t work so well. The trend is your friend. It’s a livable downward trend that will get you to goal and keep you there. Because not much changes at goal weight there’s no point in rushing.

Negative thinking. We can’t stop our brains. Just how it is. Our brains are going even when we sleep. People spend years learning meditation trying to get some peace. But not everything that goes on in our heads is thinking. I look on thinking as deliberative process. Thinking gets tiresome. We can’t do it all the time. So because our brains can’t shut up, they just take up the slack with filler. Add to that the fact that our brains love repetition. A big part of our brain would be happiest if today was just like yesterday. Need proof. Look at how many reruns are on cable TV. So our brains put out a lot of negative stuff out of habit. It’s easy.

What to do? First, just notice what’s happening. “You are messing this up just like last time.” There it goes, the same negative thought. Now that you’ve identified the thought, push back. This might take some work. A way I pushed back against past failure is “The past does not control the future.” I got that our of a weight loss book and it stuck. but you need tp find what works for you. It might take days or weeks to find what you think is a credible response. Just keep trying. But you need to find pushback that you believe in. Look around in the literature, not for answers, but for ideas that may make sense to you.

And this. Don’t be disturbed if the old thoughts keep coming. The point isn’t to turn them off or try to turn negatives to positives. All you need to do is fight the negatives to a draw when they come around. Sooner or later we all get around to some positive thinking. If we neutralize the negatives we are left with net positives.

You don’t say how long you’ve been at this or how much you’ve lost. I thought weight loss was going to be the death of fun. But what I found was liberation. You seem to be pretty far ahead of where I was when I started as you are already into hiking and biking. I was struggling to walk more than 2 blocks. Maybe you need to try some new activities or some non food rewards.
My favorite was new clothes. Hard to believe.

Maybe try this exercise to work on the aspects of the program you don’t like. Take a sheet of paper, draw a line down the middle and make two lists- why you want to lose weight one side, why you don’t on the other. Spend some time on it to ry to get everything down. If something seems too silly put it down anyway. Now look at the lists and see if there are any compromises you can make to satisfy both sides. Avoid the temptation to try to run over your own objections. Both sides can find ways to get some of what they want.

And know this- you will get results. Calorie counting works. It has to work it’s how our bodies are designed. It’s science. We are built to store excess calories to see us through hard times. In the modern world hard times never come for a lot of us. It’s a good problem to have. We just need to learn to live within some reasonable limits. You can do this. Good luck.