You can do it.

It does take time to shift your thinking, and change routines and habits, and so on.

I don't do the Beck solution, but I've wandered around in the forum. Interesting stuff. Weight Watchers latest roll out, is somewhat similar.

Right now, we are working each week on doing/making one small change or thing, of our own choosing, we can commit to for the week.

My WW week ended tonight. My change for the last week, was to do some kind of exercise on purpose each day. Didn't have to be a full blown workout, just something!

Several days were stellar, lifted, hit a new personal best lifting, and also did a 5 mile walk sponsored by my gym. Yesterday, time/life/etc. I found time for a quick 1/2 mile walk. That's not much, but the point being, I met my goal for the week, of exercising each day in some form!:carrot:

Point being, I did it.

I would like to point out, this is a long process, with sometimes a huge learning curve, of figuring out why we do what we do.

There really is no failure, only feedback. :hug:

Get right back on plan. Then, relax, start a journal or blog or whatever, and write out everything that happened today. In a few days, go back and read what you wrote, and look at it like you were reading some other persons words.

Look for clues into the behavior. Is it an old routine, that maybe should be replaced with a new one? Is it a space issue? Maybe cereal should be kept in a place that is a pain to get to. Maybe cereal should be tossed! Not there, can't eat it.

I'm going to toss out a concept, I learned from my son, who is a state trooper.

At the academy they use a concept called TAC.

T=Training
A=Assessment
C=Correction

It's a simple but affective concept.

Train and learn.
Assess your progress.
If it's not working, figure out how to correct.

I skimmed the responses but I didn't read all of them so I apologize if I say what's already been said. I am a very "all or nothing" type of person. Generally if I fall off the food wagon, I'll say to myself "well, i've already screwed up, might as well eat whatever I want for the rest of the day". I did this for years until someone told me to stop that. If you make a bad decision, accept it and move on. Start over. It's better to get back on track asap instead of ruining the whole day. I find some things that help me to avoid mindless eating are to plan my meals. I plan everything at the beginning of the week, so I can just look at my meal plan and see what I have to snack on that day. I also only shop once a week, which helps eliminate impulse junk food purchases.

You CAN do it. It's hard work but it's possible. Habits are hard to break but you'll get there!!

We're taught to see slip ups as total failure, and we're also taught that the appropriate response to a slip up is to binge until the next appropriate start-over point - the next day, or if the slip up is near the weekend, Monday morning, or if it's near the holidays, the new year.....

We do this because we're not taught to treat every choice as an opportunity for success. We 're taught that only perfection counts and when we slip, we're allowed, and even encouraged to really screw up and start over. If we did mountain climbing like we do weight loss, no one would survive it, because whenever we stumbled, we'd throw ourselves over the nearest cliff so we could start over.

When I decided that there was no starting over, just moving on, standing still, or going backwards, I vowed to stop moving backwards, and by doing so, lost more than 100 lbs, even though I too couldn't get through even one day without falling off plan. In fact, I still find it hard to be perfectly on plan, but I don't have to be perfect every day, or even any day, because I don't have to be perfect, I just have to do better.

I can tell you that I rarely have a perfect day, I stumble A LOT, but the difference this time is that I get right back up again, instead of throwing myself over the cliff to start over.

Kaplods, excellent advice! I think I'll print out your words and put them on my fridge to remind myself. Thanks!