Another great week on The Beck Diet Solution! Each time I complete a new chapter in this book I am more and more impressed with the wonderful strategies and helpful thinking being taught, and am so glad I decided to take on the task of learning how to retrain my brain, particularly when it comes to food and eating issues.
I’m definitely off to a good start!
This week I give myself credit for:
- Remembering several times to incorporate spontaneous exercise into my day while shopping by choosing a parking spot farther from the door than what I normally would have picked.
- Exercising for 15 minutes every day (up from last week’s time of 12 minutes per day).
- Moving up from the basic step exercise to Advanced Step on the Wii Fit.
- Persisting with Advanced Step (even though it confused my uncoordinated self!) until it got easier.
- Actually looking forward to exercising (what a concept!).
- During and after baking my favourite shortbread cookies, a) refraining from tasting the dough, b) calculating the calorie count of each cookie, and c) limiting myself to two cookies (which fit within my total allotted calories for the day).
- Planning ahead for a turkey-with-all-the-trimmings dinner, and then sticking to my plan.
- Immediately getting back on track after a rather indulgent (by conscious decision) Christmas potluck party.
If you’d like to catch up on my experiences to date with The Beck Diet Solution, my previous posts are here:
- Introduction – my experience
- Week 1 (Chapter 5 – Get Ready: Lay the Groundwork) – my experience
- Week 2 (Chapter 6 – Get Set: Prepare to Diet) – my experience
- Week 3 (Chapter 7 – Go: Start Your Diet) – my experience
Week 4 (Chapter 8 – Respond to Sabotaging Thoughts)
Once again, I thought I’d share a handful of the Response Cards I made and used throughout the week, to give you an idea of a few of the things I’ve been learning throughout this chapter.
This is such an easy concept, but it’s profound in its simplicity. The idea is that instead of dwelling on and making yourself miserable over the unfairness of a particular issue (such as having to diet, or saying “no” to a specific food, or perhaps not feeling like exercising), you learn to accept the situation and move on by answering sabotaging thoughts with, “Oh, well.” Doing so cuts down on the struggle and quickly brings you to a more productive and peaceful state of mind.
This was particularly meaningful to me; in fact, I could have used this lesson on fairness when I indulged in a little whine a couple of weeks back! I have a feeling I’ll be bringing this Response Card out on a regular basis until it’s drilled into my brain.
Looking too far ahead can be incredibly discouraging. Focusing on this day, this hour, sometimes even this moment in time can help keep you from becoming overwhelmed.
Both the book and the workbook go into great detail (the workbook more so) about identifying thinking errors and effectively replying to them using the Seven Question Technique. I need to spend some more time on this, making it personal for me.
Because I so often fall prey to “All-or-Nothing Thinking” (oddly enough, the first item on the list of thinking errors!), this is a great reminder.
It’s hard to believe that I’ve been at this for four weeks already, and that there are only two more chapters left in the program! I am learning so much, and building a great foundation for the future.
On to Week Five!
