Unrealistic expectations can cause failureWritten by Caryl Ehrlich
Weight gain is an evolutionary process. Some people call it creeping weight. The scale turtles inexorably upward – a tight skirt, a belt notch, a can’t-zip-up-my-pants inch at a time. Yet you expect scale to go down as rapidly as a high-speed elevator. This erroneous thought pattern – practiced and perfected as with any bad habit – is an unrealistic expectation. Dangerous to be sure with any endeavor, but deadly when it comes to weight reduction. I could have, I should have, I didn’t, I wanted to, are loud laments of perfectionist. Perfectionism is an illusion, however. Since you’ll never be perfect, in your mind you don’t ever succeed. Then you think: I failed, I blew it, I’m weak, or bad, or whatever you say to beat yourself up, and you stop trying altogether. Why not acknowledge small incremental improvements, times when you did better at one meal, one day, or one event than you might have? Focus only on what you did, not on what you thought you should have done. The inclination to focus on negative is part of all or nothing addict mind. You think that if you can’t do it perfectly for an entire week – even though it is unrealistic to think you can – you won’t do it at all. It would be more pleasurable to look for positive and see that list grow. All-or-nothing thinking is far more destructive to your weight loss goal than a friend baking brownies and leaving them on your desk. Even if you eat one brownie but manage to give rest to co-workers and friends, you think you’ve blown it. A better way of thinking would be to realize you only ate one, when in past you probably would have eaten several, if not all. Unrealistic expectations give substance, heft, and power to an unrealized goal. They quash budding crocus of success as it pushes through thick asphalt of failure. Unrealistic expectations kill flowering of dreams, because you become so disappointed that you give up hope. Thomas Edison never stopped trying. “I have not failed 10,000 times,” he said. “I have successfully found 10,000 ways that will not work.” The only reality is where you are today – perhaps 50 pounds and where you were a week ago – perhaps 155 pounds. And even if your weight remains same, there are other questions to ask: Did you keep a food log? Did you drink requisite amount of water? Did you do better at an industry function than you might have? Did you eat less than usual at your mother’s? Yes? Then you’re ahead of game. Marcia S, an unrealistic thinker, lost seven pounds in two weeks. The third week she lost one pound. When I asked for a positive story, she said: “Nothing good happened.” She was miserable. “But you lost eight pounds,” I reminded her.
| | What is Real Hunger?Written by Caryl Ehrlich
In order to identify hunger, you must first understand what it is. This is not as easy as it seems. Many of you may never have let yourself experience true hunger, only a feeling of discomfort. Not knowing exactly what it was, you may have been eating past hunger for such a long time you can no longer differentiate between hunger and feeling of anxiety, stress, boredom, or any number of other emotional or circumstantial stimuli. You haven’t allowed yourself to go without eating for a long enough period of time to have felt true hunger; you may not have experienced it since childhood. Each of us is born with an innate sense of hunger. When you were a baby and felt this sensation, you cried. Your mother or caregiver pacified you with a bottle or breast, and when you were no longer hungry, you pushed food away. Before you could speak, you made yourself understood. As a toddler beginning to eat baby food, you were still in control of your food consumption. Your mother might have thought you had to finish everything she served, but you had other ideas. You might have clenched your little baby teeth and not permitted one extra spoonful of anything to enter your mouth. She might have pushed your chubby little cheeks together trying to force you to open your mouth, but you would not. If she did manage to insert some food, you spit it out, sometimes on your bib, sometimes on mom. The message was clear. “No more food, Mommy.” As she persevered, you finally learned to please your mother by finishing everything on your plate. You may have been told that if you ate your vegetables, your reward would be dessert. You were bribed with a lollipop if you’d stop crying. You learned to eat all your food because it gave pleasure to others. It didn’t seem to matter anymore whether you were hungry or not. You were taught to ignore your feelings of hunger and satiation just to please someone else. And you learned well. Years later, you’re still keeping a friend company by sharing a meal when you’re not hungry, or accepting an alcoholic beverage just to be part of crowd, or to please a hostess. The dictionary describes hunger as “the painful sensation or state of weakness caused by need of food.” Some people become irritable, shaky, or disoriented if they are not fed at their usual mealtime. Others experience hunger as feeling lightheaded, empty, low, headachy, or hollow. At times a growling stomach prompts an eating episode. Some eat when they get depressed. Others lose their appetite when they get depressed. External stimuli are abundant, as are emotional and physical ones, yet few of these are hunger, just some other strain on your nervous system.
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