do you give yourself positive or negative pep talks?
 

when you are feeling down.. when you want to eat junk.. or when you feel like giving up on your weight loss.. what kind of "talks" do you give yourself? positive "you can do it girl dont quit now" or "do you want to continue being a fat ***?" im asking this because i tend to be very negative on myself when im going through something like i just mentioned. i always tell myself the worst things like if im about to eat cookies i will say to myself something like, alright then eat them.. i guess you want to keep on being the blah blah blah and i say horrible things but they tend to work and stop me from losing it with food. i know this cant be good but does anyone else do this?

uhh...Is it possible to have a neutral answer? :D :p

I just tell myself "140 pounds" because that's my goal weight. Telling myself my goal weight allows me to put the junk food back and have some cherries or pineapple instead. I guess it's kinda positive because I'm making myself look to something I want instead of beating myself up over what I am now.

Positive or neutral, I guess! As in, "I'm going to skip that right now," or "You don't want that as much as you want to reach your goal," or "Yes, those cookies look great, but maybe later." Also positive about exercise: "You don't feel like going to the gym, but go anyway." "Come on, a walk won't take that long and you'll feel better."

I don't call myself names. That's just being mean to myself!

It's natural to want certain tasty foods--the problem isn't finding foods attractive, the problem is eating them, and especially eating them in excess.

It helps also to have a plan that can be worked around. I had some lowfat, sugar-free ice cream last weekend--I fit it into my calories, though. So, although it wasn't the best choice, it probably didn't do much harm. Because I have a plan to work with, I don't have to rely so much on positive or negative self-talk to keep going.

Jay

Definitely positive.

My genes will always be with me to give me that tendency to gain weight more than a 'naturally thin' person, so I'm in this for life, and I am NOT going to spend the rest of my life calling myself names and talking down to myself every time I happen to dare look at a slice of pizza. (Like this would ever stop, hehe.)

Granted, it took me years to manage to reach that state of mind, but drats, things are hard enough as they are, after all... no need to make it even harder on myself.

Besides, I'm like dogs, I do better with positive reinforcement than with negative remarks. :D

I work hard at staying away from negative thoughts and pushing myself with positive thinking even when I don't FEEL like it. In fact I give myself $$$ awards for certain things. But even except for that, people at work often tease me because when I come back from my long walk at lunch I have a huge smile on my face... that is because I DID it... I went and did my walking when often I wanted to sit in my car and work Sudoku puzzles or whatever. :)

When I am tempted to eat junk I think about how I DON'T want to look and that it is worth it to give it up... etc. I COULD very easily allow the negative thoughts to come in and swamp me... but I try VERY hard not to allow them.

Both, it depends on my mood.

Most frequently, my pep talks are positive. I think things like, "Thin clothes. You haven't given away those thin clothes for A REASON! You can be a size 4-6 again. 135 pounds. ABS! You KNOW, you want abs! Don't you go eating that nasty bag of chips that will turn your entire potential set of abs into flab..."

Occasionally, I will think, "UT, NO, biatch, eating CRAP is what got you FAT in the first place! You better get off your FAT BEHIND before it GETS any fatter!"

I do the most talking to myself when I'm exercising. Mostly it's along the lines of "Move that bootie, girl, go go go, 30 more seconds, stay strong, you've got this." I HAVE to stay positive in my head. Negative, self-hating thoughts send me straight for the food.

I think I used to be a lot more negative in my self-talk, but in the long run it really demotivated me! So now my self-talk is all positive. It works so much better! I think things like:

"What would the thin person I want to be do in this situation? They'd go for a walk rather than eat that cake!"
"Hey, I messed up once, but that happens sometimes! Now how can I avoid this in the future?"
"Just because I am having a craving doesn't mean I have to act on it! I can WANT something, but not follow through and eat it!"
"Think of all the work you've put in and all the success you've had! Is it worth it to mess that up for a couple of chocolate chip cookes? NO!"
"You know that once you get that milkshake, it won't taste nearly as good as you are anticipating it will ... and then you'll have derailed your weight loss! Is that worth it? No way!"
"Sure those french fries look good, but you know what? The food I have looks great too! AND it's low calorie! I love salads and fruit!"
"Sure, I could give up on my diet ... but what am I going to do tomorrow if I do? Give in to being fat and unhappy and unhealthy forever? Not going to happen! So I may as well stay on track today!"

I haven't had this problem too often, but yesterday I felt really bad about my weight loss and whatnot. I made up an exercise (or maybe I read it somewhere, I don't know) where for 5 minutes I was going to write down as many things positive about my weight loss or my plan or my progress that I could think of. I got 10 things down [this was all on my blog] and it made me feel a lot better!
I'm still not quite uber positive now, but I am feeling better and not as if I am going to give up.

I never talk negatively to myself about food. If i want it, I eat it. I just work it in. But i don't tend to go over board anymore. i don't sit down in front of the tv with a bag of chips. I have a handful and put the bag away. Then i wash my mouth out so i don't have the lingering taste. I had two cookies last night, but when i got up, i still had a lose on the scale. So, today I will watch my calorie intake and definately go to cardio class tonight.

Its pretty much all negative..

"Why do you make things so hard for yourself? Just..don't....eat...it"

"You are disgusting"

"You are ugly"

"Your stomach is MASSIVE enough already, don't you think?"

on and on!

Cousin, :(

Lumifan! Argh! I hope I catch up with you soon!

Jay

This is absolutely me too. Being really negative with myself is pretty much my #1 guaranteed way to send myself into a binge. If I hurt myself then another part of me feels the need to comfort myself, and that part seems to only know to use food.

Cousin....how can you be so mean to yourself?!?! You should not say that. If you tell yourself your ugly and fat, how do you expect anyone else to think good about you??? My goal is to get down to 130-125. I don't care if I do have a bit of a poochy belly or saggy belly. I know what i used to look like and anything is better than that. Even if i didn't lose another pound from today on...I am beautiful. On the inside and on the outside. If you can't love yourself, no one else can love you either. And i don't see why you don't love yourself. You are taller than i am, you are thinner than i am and i'm sure you are beautiful inside and i think you are beautiful on the outside to. Don't be so hard on yourself.

Jay...I know...I can't believe i finally saw a drop. I am just too excited!!!! I stayed at 158 from 6/9-6/19. Ten whole days and finally today...down 1!!!!! I'll never make june goal at that rate, but i'll take one more pound by the last day of the month!!! At least one more pound will put me at an even 40 pounds gone!!!!

Cousin, you need to work on your attitude! Being so harsh on yourself will not make you lose weight faster. And you're also being unrealistic ... even at your highest weight, 140, at your height you were of normal weight! No WAY was your stomach EVER massive!! Look at yourself in the mirror ... are you REALLY disgusting? No WAY! Ugly ... NOPE! So, how is telling yourself those lies going to help you reach your goals? You need to recognize you are beautiful and wonderful and because of that you want to be the healthiest, fittest, sexiest you possible. Be kind to yourself and recognize you deserve success.

It can be hard to be positive, but I try to steer clear of blatently calling myself "fat" or other hurtful things; it's too easy to let that carry over into other areas in my life. It's that whole self-fulfilling prophecy thing.

I can still be pretty negative though. There's a line in a song by a band called ThreeBrain that I often use when I want something that's really bad for me but I shouldn't have it: "Cry yourself a greasy river." It's negatively motivating, but not directly hurtful to myself.

Cousin... I have to ask, do you have a past of eating disorders?

I'm only asking because you sound just like I did when I starved myself... and you're average weight right now, your starting weight was average, and your goal weight is the lowest possible number you could hit without being underweight.

PS: if that is you in your avatar pic, you're gorgeous...

both? depends.

Somedays I need to give myself a pep talk (i.e. if I am feeling like this is taking too long or if I am feeling badly over a slip up)

Sometimes I just need to be my own drill seargant (i.e. this morning at 5:09 am when I said "move it, get your :censored: out of bed and put your :censored: running shoes on and get :censored: moving"

I'm pretty sure from 5-5:09 I had tried the "think of how good you'll feel" and "so close now, keeeeep going" and all the peppy crap. If I had been anyone else I would have beaten the :censored: out of me for being so dang perky at 5 am.

ennay! :rofl:

Some days are like that!

Jay

It pretty much takes a pep talk to get myself out of bed every morning. But I'm not really negative or positive, I'm just sort of laying there in bed saying "Okay, I'm going get up now. Okay, now, I'm going to get up now. Now I really am going to get up. Now, up now..." It goes on for a while before I actually get up.

I also give myself pep talks around exercise, usually trying to encourage myself to keep it up or move faster or that I can do it. Sometimes I ask myself if Jessica Alba or Gwen Stefani would quit now (I like the idea of celebrities having to work as hard as I do (or harder) to stay in shape; it's motivating to me).

But I don't really give myself talks around food. When I am thinking about going off-plan, I do try to remind myself that this is going to delay me reaching my goal and I try to consciously affirm that I am willing to accept that delay in order to have this momentary gratification. I'm definitely better at this on some days than others, but it's something I'm workin gon and I do sometimes decide that the momentary gratification isn't worth it (and then other times I decide that it is worth it, but at least I've made a conscious decision about it).

I give myself positive pep talks about everything I'm struggling with, not just my health. I don't berate myself because 1. I think it's mentally unhealthy; 2. I don't call other people I care about names or belittle them, so why would I do it to myself? and 3. it doesn't actually motivate me. It just makes me feel bad.

There are plenty of people who have been mean to me in the past and I'm sure there will be others in the future. That's just life. But I don't choose to beat myself up anymore. I used to be an expert at doing that, but then I figured out that I'm the only person I can count on to be kind to me. :)

I'm mostly negative, but sometimes positive. I agree with others who have posted that the negative thoughts just tend to make you backslide. For example, I've flubbed up bigtime on my diet this week (too many occassions to dine out). I am so disgusted with myself, and I got up this morning wanting to do penance by eating 1000 calories a day until I lose at least 10 lbs. But the saner part of me realizes that this will just set me up for a binge-starve cycle and make things worse.

this is a great question!!

I usually give myself negative pep-talks, such as: "You've spent a lifetime being chubby and doing this, so STOP IT."
I found it motivates me so much more than peppy positive-type speak because that kind feels fake.

I usually delve into my deepest feeling to motivate. :)


leda

I just don't like *me*, its not so much about my body its about my life etc. I do have a copious eating disorder history, but I have no motivation at all to change and I just wanna hang around here.

This seems so unhealthy and counterproductive, in opposition to a healthy life. Reading those words makes me sad. :hug: Please seek professional help because we care about you but can't help you like a team of medical professionals could.

Hee! I definitely do that too. I've even given myself a (gentle!) smack on my bootie to get in it gear. But, I don't see that as being negative. More like... tough love. You're not calling yourself mean names or beating yourself up, which is what I classify as negative.

Cousin, you're welcome to hang around.

Sorry things seem so tough for you! :(

Jay