TFL Key #6: Learn The Art Of Positive Self-Talk
 

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:devil: The devil made me do it!! :lol:
Just kidding. #2 is my biggie. The all or nothing attitude. And yes, I talk to myself all the time. Sometimes out loud...that comes with age!! :lol: I know I have this attitude, #2, but it's hard to stop it. I thought I'd conquered it when I was maintaining so beautiful for 19 months BUT..........not so, I'm back to my negative, I call it stinking feelings and self talk!
I don't try and turn it around. I say yep, there is my all or nothing attitude. Resigned to it? Ok, this week I will try and change it around. Will let you know how well I do Meg.

Hi Maintainers,

Meg, I fully agree. This negative selftalk thing is bothering me at a LOT of things and i'm trying now to turn it around to some more positive things. Especially #5:"I had a hard day so I deserve this chocolate" is my weak point eatingwise.

rabbit

I think this is possibly one of the most important topics in TfL--kind of surprised it hasn't gotten more discussion here. Without the mental tools to be successful, all the rest, the smart eating, the exercise can be undermined so easily. I think I have fallen prey to all of the categories of negative self-talk.

I think it is vitally important to remember that the mind LIES.

Fletcher has outlined some powerful techniques for dealing with this. I know that when I'm doing a good job of catching the lies, I do well on my plan. When I don't, well, I don't. The cognitive restructuring is very powerful. Meg paraphrased it very well.

As much as I love exercise, if I had a single most important key to maintenance, this is it.

Anne

Anne – this is one of the most important keys for me too. And I liked the realistic approach: you’re not supposed to wipe out all negative thinking – it’s just a matter of getting a balance: “aiming for a ratio of about 2 to 1, positive to negative.”

I’m still a bit shaken up after my recent relapse, and want to learn more about how my head works when it comes to food and eating; so I took up Meg’s challenge and monitored my self-talk for 2 days. I’m probably in a good place with my eating just now, but even in an “optimal food modus” I still found myself doing the ‘all-or-nothing’, ‘catastrophic’ and ‘should-self-statements’ surprisingly often. Along with some of the others.

The monitoring part of this assignment was surprisingly difficult to do, btw. I came up with countless excuses why monitoring would be a waste of my time. I think it was the complete overkill of excuses I came up with that made me think that I might find something interesting here. It looked a little like a too heavy defense to me! (Yes, I’m a psychology student, why do you ask?! :D) It was also hard work to actually do!
After 2 days of monitoring I evaluated the written list of my self-talk statements, and when I sat down to go through my thoughts I tried to look at them a bit objectively. I tried to see whether I agreed, whether they were true or sensible? Just like Fletcher suggests. And I found that many of them were complete rubbish, exaggerations, or groundless! :yes:
I used the very good question “Would you say this to someone else in this situation?” to come up with good answers/responses to my negative self-talk statements. So that the next time I think to myself “I’ll probably gain all the weight back” hopefully two things will happen: 1) I will become aware that I’m doing the catastrophic negative self-talk again, and: 2) I’ll stop up for a second and tell myself that I will not. That I am able to keep this weight off.

I am surprised this chapter hasn't gotten a lot more responses also.

This is one of the most important chapters. Positive self-talk is not easy especially when you are constantly being reminded of what you’ve done to yourself.. every time you look in the mirror, try to run, to wear something you once wore all the time, seeing yourself in pictures… yes.. the list goes on. I do my best not to remind myself negatively. But still be realistic in accepting reality.

When I first saw the title of this chapter I thought I could just breeze right through it. “It doesn’t really apply to ME,” I thought. Because I don’t beat myself up about "little" choices. Or moan and groan when I’ve eaten something not so good for me. But then I kept reading.. yes sometimes I went ahead and ate another of this or that because “what the heck, I already had one and one more won’t make a difference.” It made sense to me.. THEN..

But I probably do beat myself up about the accumulative choices. The result it has had on me. I think when I am not eating well or exercising, I avoid taking care of myself in other ways. The way I dress, the things I do or don't do. I think I've managed to punished myself without the bad talk.

Sometimes that voice in my head sounds so positive. Like exercise. In such a sweet voice it comes up with all kinds of reasons why it’s ok not to exercise or why I should go ahead and cut my workout short. Sad thing is I used to listen to it all of the time. And even now I find that I still do. But this chapter has helped me see that this voice is not being supportive. It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. I think this is what chapter 6 describes as “Rationalizing self-talk” In a nutshell, “THE MIND LIES!!!!!!”

I’ve got to listen to this voice with a different ear.

A quote I need to keep in mind.. not just daily .. but all day:

“… you may go through an entire day without monitoring what you say to yourself. This doesn’t mean that your thoughts are unconscious- only that you seldom make an effort to listen in on them.” P. 183

I've been monitoring my self talk these past few days to see if and how I use positive self talk. Since the area I am focusing on now is establishing routine and an exercise plan, I paid close attention to those areas.

Some of the things I said to myself were very constructive and full of self praise. But I also noticed something else. Just as the mind lies... I consciously LIE! I've been telling myself that I love exercising. That is not entirely true. But yet I've been telling myself that I do so much that I really think I am beginning to love it.

Until I sincerely find that I love exercise I will happily continue to lie to myself about it. :D

My DH and I talked about this chapter at dinner last night.

I think one of the reasons it hasn't gotten more responses is that it's 'old news'. We've all read something like the 'Power of Positive Thinking' or 'Think and Grow Rich'. I remember reading TfL the first time and almost skipping this chapter. "OK, OK ... I'm worth it, I'm strong, I'm capable ... ya ya ... blah blah ..."

Too many of us temper our enthusiasm with 'wisdom'. We're smart enough to be realistic. We don't think "I can be slim and fit." We know the facts ;) ;) ;) . It's more like "I can be as nearly slim and sorta fit as is possible for someone as slouchy, old, lazy and half-hearted as me". We're savvy enough not to fall for that rah rah broohaha.

It's dangerous! You leave yourself open to being wrong ... being labelled a cockeyed optimist ... the rose coloured glasses type.

Bumping this discussion. Reading these has been really helpful.

I'm pretty good with not beating the crap out of myself, I think, but I have maintained my weight by believing that I haven't have "just one". This worked for me with ciggarettes, and I never want to go back. I do keep telling myself that I can't have just one ciggarette. I plan to tell myself this forever as quitting smoking was so hard, and ciggarettes are SO NOT what I want to do with my life (quit in 2001. :) Yay!!!)

But with food things are somehow different. Telling myself I cant have any of this or that ever or I will just fall right off "the wagon" hasn't kept me thin. Well, maybe it has, but once I have any kind of slip, boom. The effort it takes may not be worth the payoff. Does that make sense?

The truth is, I like to feel good. And I like to eat treats sometimes. Food is not just about fuel for me. It's also pleasure, it's socially and culturally meaningful. And if I can maintain my weight and still experience some of the richness of food culture, that's what I want to do. That's why I'm here.

A belated thanks for posting these. I'm going through them slowly and getting a lot out of them.