Limiting Thoughts Flashcards
Sabotaging Thought: I want to try this diet I heard about. It promises I can lose a lot of weight very quickly, very easily, and without effort. So what if it isn’t nutritionally balanced? I won’t be on it for long anyway.
Helpful response: A fad diet isn’t healthy, and I’ll need to be on a diet—or a variation of the diet—for a long time. Promises that sound too good to be true invariably are too good to be true.
Sabotaging Thought: I can learn to eat sensibly after I finish dieting.
Helpful Response: If I don’t learn how to eat sensibly now, what evidence do I have that I’ll be able to learn later? I need to start now.
Diet 1
Louise Parker Method
Diet 2
I can make you thin
Sabotaging Thought: It’s okay if I eat standing up this one time. I’ll eat my next meal sitting down.
Helpful Response: “Just this one time” is not okay. I have to face the fact that I probably can’t lose weight or keep it off if I refuse to change my habit of eating while standing up.
Sabotaging Thought: I don’t have time to sit down to eat.
Helpful Response: Sitting down isn’t optional. I’ll have to rearrange my schedule so that I do have time. It’s essential for controlling what and how much I eat.
Sabotaging Thought: I strayed from my diet plan, and I think I gained weight. I don’t want to call and tell my diet coach.
Helpful Response: This is the time I need my diet coach most. In a few minutes, I’ll probably be glad I called. My diet coach won’t criticize me or think poorly of me. If I call, I’ll get the practical help and support I need. The reasons to lose weight that I wrote on my Advantages Response Card are still important to me, so I should go ahead and call now.
Sabotaging Thought: If I tell my family or coworkers about my diet, they’ll make comments about what I eat.
Helpful Response: I can ask them not to say anything: “It would help if you didn’t comment on what I eat or don’t eat—can you do that for me?”
Sabotaging Thought: I don’t want to waste food by throwing it out.
Helpful Response: If I don’t throw it out, I’ll be at risk for “wasting” it in my body, where it’ll turn to fat. Which is a better way to waste it?
Sabotaging Thought: I’m a spontaneous person. I don’t like to schedule my time.
Helpful Response: To lose weight, I have to give up some spontaneity. I wish I didn’t have to, but that’s the way it is—at least for now. Until I’ve developed a routine, I can’t rely on spontaneous shopping and spontaneous food preparation. But that doesn’t mean that I can’t be spontaneous in other ways.
Sabotaging Thought: I don’t have the time to do the steps in this program.
Helpful Response: It might be more accurate to say that I’m not willing to make the time. If I had to get a blood transfusion every day to keep myself alive, obviously I’d find the time. While being overweight isn’t necessarily life threatening, I still need to make a serious commitment if I want to diet successfully. I need to look at my Advantages Response Card again and judge whether I really want to lose weight.
