Are you Programming Yourself for Success or Failure?

It’s easy to want to lose weight. It’s another matter to actually want to embark on a new—healthy—lifestyle that requires eating better and exercising. After all it’s just human nature to want the prize without having to do the work.

The biggest obstacle between you and success with weight management however, probably isn’t eating better or even exercising—it’s very likely negative thinking and sabotaging self talk. It may never have occurred to you that long term success with weight management ultimately hinges on fixing your thinking.

Every time someone is successful with their weight you’ll find that they gave up their excuses and owned that they were responsible and in charge of their changing. For things to change you must change. Outside change depends on inside change.

“We all talk to ourselves. We may not want to admit it, but all thinking human beings have a constant stream-of-consciousness chatter going on,” says psychologist Stephen Gullo PhD. That stream-of-chatter essentially programs you for either success or failure.

The good news is that you can take control of your internal dialog so that it is programming you for success. Changing your thinking so that it supports you instead of sabotages you is called cognitive restructuring.

Cognitive restructuring is a proven behavioral strategy for successful weight control based on the premise that distorted or dysfunctional thinking strongly influences a person’s behavior. It involves identifying distorted thinking (self-defeating, false, and irrational beliefs) and replacing them with more rational, constructive thoughts and beliefs.

Examples of negative and sabotaging self talk:

False Beliefs: The interesting thing about false beliefs is that they provide convenient excuses for failure.

• “I’ve ruined my metabolism due to yo-yo dieting—my body is broken.” Unless you have severe undiagnosed hypothyroidism, your metabolism does fall in the normal range for your gender age and weight. If you doubt this have your RMR measured so you can stop doubting it.
• “I’m destined to be heavy due to family genetics.” Genetics play a role in a variety of areas that can affect your weight, however, biology is not destiny--your choices about what you eat and how much you move ultimately determine your weight. You are still in control.
• “I haven’t found the right doctor/pill/nutritionist/diet—nothing works for me.” The underlying error is that responsibility for changing is put outside of yourself rather than being owned by you. By the same token when you’ve had success you’ve also given the credit to the (fad) diet instead of to your own hard work. In reality all the diet did was trick you into eating fewer calories—YOU did all the work! When you own responsibility for your weight you also—correctly—give yourself the CREDIT for your success.
• “I can’t wait for this diet to be over—I’m tired of watching what I eat.” The underlying error is thinking that temporary changes might have permanent results. Additionally, you are likely telling yourself how unfair things are, and how deprived you feel.

Unrealistic expectations:

• “I want to lose 40 pounds for my class reunion (wedding, anniversary, before summer, etc.).” You didn’t put the weight on overnight and it comes off even slower than you put it on. Expecting otherwise is unrealistic and a set-up for disappointment and failure. The smartest approach is small—and therefor achievable—goals. That way you have more frequent celebrations of success, and you know you CAN lose the next 5 pounds.

Sabotaging self talk:

• “It’s too hard, I have no self-control, I will never lose weight.” You are simply programming yourself for failure. Your mind will dutifully find all kinds of evidence to support what you tell it—so if you keep saying, “I have no self-control,” you’ll never have any self-control.
• “Food is my friend.” Food—and especially problem trigger foods—are not friends, treats, rewards nor comfort. What have these foods really done for you? In fact they have cost you happiness, quality of life, and self esteem by creating a never ending struggle with your weight. Trigger foods are actually your enemies. Any food that you can’t control is controlling you, and needs to be dealt with accordingly.
• “Poor me, I’m deprived, it’s not fair!” The truth is that you CAN have anything you want whenever you want. You can’t however do that AND be trim (and that truth applies to everyone). This kind of self-pitying self talk keeps you stuck. Worse, the end point of this type of thinking can be highly destructive—leading to a binge cycle that spirals you out of control. Turn deprivation thinking on its head—the reality is that by over-indulging in food you have deprived yourself of a healthy weight and appearance, self-regard and peace of mind.
         A final reality check: real deprivation is a child going to bed hungry because he/she literally doesn’t have enough food to eat.

Basically, any change efforts are bound to fail if you don’t also change the internal conversation that you have been sabotaging yourself with. You can continue with a negative, pessimistic, defeatist and often self-demeaning internal dialog (and keep spinning your wheels)—or you can take control with an upbeat, winning attitude that supports success. Change your thinking and weight loss will naturally follow.

Examples of supportive and constructive self talk:

• “Losing and maintaining weight, or gaining weight, is under my control.”
• “My weight is the result of my eating and exercise habits.”
• “Avoiding trigger foods is not deprivation, it’s liberation!”
• “Managing my home environment makes a winning day easy!”
• “Planning trumps willpower!”
• “I CAN have everything I need; and what I don’t need I don’t want.”
• “I can master the skills necessary for success. I just need to take it one step—and one day or hour—at a time.”
• “Weight management depends on skills that I am mastering.”
• “Every time I say, “no thank you,” I say “yes” to my health and happiness.”
• “I CAN have that, but I CHOOSE not to.”
• “Food is body fuel, body nourishment, but not entertainment. Treats are for special occasions, not every day.”
• “With each ‘no, thank you’ I gain more control, self-reliance, and self esteem.”

How to replace sabotaging self talk with constructive self talk:

1. Start by tuning in and listening to your internal dialog so that you can begin to identify your “flawed thinking” and in each case write a constructive/supportive statement—or belief—that counters it.
2. Create a personal set of 3x5 cards with your constructive statements and read them a minimum of twice each day. The more often the better!
3. It’s also helpful to listen to yourself speak each of your new constructive beliefs and statements. An easy way to do that is to record a message on your cell phone that you can listen to several times a day.

Keep adding to your collection of supportive statements—every time you catch your internal dialog going negative, write a new supportive counter statement.

Immediately read or listen to your cards whenever you find yourself tempted to slip. Make sure you memorize some supportive one-liners too. The more you read—and listen to—your new constructive beliefs and statements, the faster your “new thinking” will be internalized. Essentially, what you are doing is waging an internal PR campaign that reprograms you for success!

Of course this all depends on your really wanting to change. If deep down you are not actually ready to give up being pessimistic, defeatist, and self critical you’ll make excuses for not identifying and fixing your sabotaging self talk. That’s okay—it just means you’re not yet ready to leave this self-defeating (crazy as it sounds) comfort zone. There are always costs as well as benefits to changing. You may need to let go of a martyr identity that “enjoyed” attention for failure. Shaking up your self concept is a cost—even if it’s for the better! Know, however, that serious success with your weight—the kind that lasts—will require dealing with any unsupportive self talk that holds you back. You can and will be successful as soon as YOU decide to be!

Best,
-Dorene

What’s for dinner?

I consider myself a good cook, and a pretty good baker. I remember my mom having me “get dinner started” before she got home from work when I was just eight or nine. We didn’t know that we were latch-key kids; grandmother lived next door. It was 1960. To me cooking assignments were fun and I liked being helpful (and probably feeling like I was more grown up than my brothers).

As a weight management specialist—for nineteen years now—I’ve long been aware that cooking skills have a lot to do with eating choices. For good or bad we pass our skill, or lack of skill, to our children.

Recently, I read a book that got me thinking more about my own cooking skills: The Kitchen Counter Cooking School--How a Few Simple Lessons Transformed Nine Culinary Novices into Fearless Home Cooks, by Kathleen Flinn. Like the nine novice cooks in the book, I cook a lot like my mom. For instance, since reading the book I noticed that while I know how to roast, or sauté, fresh veggies, I often warm up frozen veggies in the microwave. Maybe that’s because like most of us I feel time-constrained, and I already have the entrée to deal with. On the other hand, mom used mostly frozen veggies. Thankfully, they are a healthy choice that we needn’t feel bad about! Still, more roasted veggies will be showing up on our dinner table.

Most of us would probably like to cook more, and feel more competent at it. Most of us would also like to spend less money on food, and most importantly feed ourselves and our families more nutritiously. Learning to cook—and then actually cooking—can deliver all that.

Whether you like cooking, or don’t feel like much of a cook, but would like to learn, I think you’d enjoy and take a lot away from Kathleen Flinn’s book. She provides a great basics foundation: the basics of soups (and stocks), braising, how to cook fish, simple guidelines on dressings, marinades, seasoning styles (Italian, French, Thai, Cajun, Indian, etc., etc.). There’s also good advice on how to improvise, including using leftovers and even how to avoid throwing so much food away.

The most vaulable take away might be to learn to trust your instincts, your own taste, and the empowerment of being able to create food that you and yours will enjoy.

My cousin, a 6-foot 4-inch tall Gulf war veteran, originally recommended Flinn's book to me. He’s the cook in his house and he thought it was great. Needless to say, it has wide appeal! Love to hear what you think.

Best,
-Dorene

“I’ll get back on my diet tomorrow…” but at what cost?

The most fascinating—and destructive—behavior pattern associated with dieting occurs when you break the “rules” of whatever diet you’re attempting to follow. Odds are if you have any history of dieting you’ll recognize this behavior pattern immediately. 

There are a host of cognitive distortions (irrational thoughts) that come into play—basically setting you up for a big fall over the slightest perceived transgression.

First a few definitions:

• All-or-nothing thinking: thinking in absolute terms like “always”, “never”, and “every”, which sets up both unrealistic expectations and a false situation that allows for only two alternatives (no shades of gray).
• Disqualifying the positive: ignorring everything you are doing right.
• Catastrophizing: blowing things out of proportion regarding anticipated ramifications of a perceived transgression (in this case regarding one’s diet).
• Emotional reasoning: resistance to shifting from emotional self-judgments, or emotional situational assessments, to analytical evaluation of factual details.

So let’s look at the pattern by way of a story.

Imagine you have had a totally together week; you’ve hit your physical activity goals and followed your food plan (including weighing and measuring for accurate food records). Then on Friday—out of the blue—there is a birthday party at your office. Everyone heads into the conference room where in addition to cake you’re faced with an array of homemade goodies including your favorite—peanut butter cookies. Here comes the tray of cookies, and as it’s passed to you you take a cookie; you eat the cookie. Then you think to yourself, “darn, I’ve been on track all week and now I’ve blown it.”

At this point you are upset (disappointed, frustrated, angry) with yourself. But why is that? Because you ate a peanut butter cookie that you “feel” breaks the (arbitrary) dieting “rules” that you’re trying to hold yourself to.

You automatically judge yourself a “failure” (all or nothing thinking—as if you are either “on” your diet, or “off” your diet). You’re uncomfortable and uneasy with a swarm of yucky feelings from your scathing self-judgment.

Your next thought is, “oh well, I’ve had a tough week.” And, “it’s just too hard not to eat in this situation.” Fair enough. But you’re not done yet. Your next thought is, “oh well, I’ll get back on my diet tomorrow.”

Now you are actually hanging on the precipice of (the first) real trouble. Due to the twisted "reasoning" of dieters, the promise you just made to yourself (“I’ll get back on track tomorrow”) frees you to party — like it’s the last supper — until tomorrow. Meanwhile, you’re still surrounded by calorie-dense goodies that you now have no intention of not eating!

What I’ve just described is the most critical part of this maladaptive behavior pattern—the avoidance response. The avoidance response consists of two parts:

1. A rationalization, reason, justification (basically any excuse, valid or not) for your perceived lapse, followed by
2. A promise for future action tomorrow, or Monday--but not today.

It’s the promise for future action which — combined with throwing in the towel for the rest of the day — that ensures the (calorie) damage.

The insidious and powerful thing about the avoidance response is that it’s self-reinforcing. Here’s why: the split-second that you speak your excuse and promise (for future action) all your yucky feelings and anxiety are instantly gone! Poof! You instantaneously feel better, and you’re free to eat for the rest of the afternoon/evening/day/weekend! Here’s the deal—the closer a reinforcement for a behavior occurs to the behavior, the stronger it reinforces repeating that behavior.

Generally this is where one cookie turns into more cookies than you care to think about, or want to admit. I call that compounded overeating (basically a binge). Here’s another kicker though. The compounded overeating results in the return of even worse anxiety and negative self-judgments than you had originally, which in turn often leads to further avoidance of “getting back on track.” This is—in a nut shell—how people gain weight, while trying to lose weight.

The surest way to avoid this pattern is to understand it. You can see that it’s a completely irrational dynamic. It’s easier to be analytical about it, however, when you’re not in the middle of it. The challenge is to bring rational assessment to the table when you actually find yourself in the pattern.

Closing thoughts – Despite being “sold” as magical combinations of “how” and “what to eat” to create weight loss, the reality is that rules (from popular diets) regarding “what to eat” and “not eat” are arbitrary. All they actually do is create a structure that limits calorie intake. At the end of the day a calorie deficit is the ONLY thing that creates weight loss. In fact, as long as you under-eat your calorie needs you could lose weight on just cookies and ice cream. Not a healthy choice, but you get the point.

Actionable Advice – You are far better off to learn to eat a healthy diet at an appropriate calorie level for your goal weight. Doing so will lead to gradual weight loss and when you reach your goal you will already know how to stay there! If you want to lose weight a little faster see Choosing a Calorie Level for Weight Loss, and be sure to add physical activity into the mix.

All the Best!

-Dorene

Popcorn: A Healthy Snack You Already Love!

Popcorn is whole grain and naturally loaded with healthy micronutrients. Recently, at the meeting of the American Chemical Society, researchers presented findings about popcorns’ antioxidant content. Polyphenols are cancer-fighting antioxidants that also naturally occur in many fruits and vegetables. Popcorn is loaded with polyphenols.

Another recent headline regarding popcorn: Center for Science in the Public Interest (CSPI) put out a petition asking the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) to stick to requiring movie theatres to post calorie information for consumers. (Lobbyists apparently are trying to talk their way out of the law requiring it.) CSPI fairly pointed out however, that a bucket of popcorn (without butter) is 1,200 calories! I have to admit, that in college I often made one of those buckets “dinner” at the Kenworthy Theatre (which was walking distance from the University of Idaho campus)! I do agree with CSPI, theatre fare should have calorie information so that moviegoers have the opportunity to make healthier choices.

Obviously, pay attention to how popcorn is popped and seasoned! Air poppers became popular in the 1970s because they were a cleaner and more convenient way to pop popcorn. They also don't add unnecessary calories from oil, which in my opinion leaves room for a very modest drizzle of melted butter (at least for those of us who don't already have much saturated fat in our diets). I'll admit it, mom always added a little butter and popcorn salt. And hey, I'm a card carrying member of the moderation camp.

Over the years I’ve worn out a few air poppers. My husbands’ air popper (Black & Decker Handy Pop’n Serve circa 1990) is the best and most compact air popper I’ve ever used (it pops almost every kernel). Even today, every so often, popcorn is dinner while we watch a movie.

What about microwaved popcorn? I recently talked to Dr. Lisa Harnack, a researcher on at University of Minnesota, who has followed the changes in trans fat in the food supply, which have improved significantly since 2006 when the labeling requirement for trans fat went into effect. Microwave popcorn is convenient, but some brands still have some trans fat. The topic of trans fat requires another entire blog, but suffice it to say that according to the Institutes of Medicine, "there is no safe level of trans fat intake" so do your best to read labels and avoid all products with trans fat.

All the best,
-Dorene

Are Sweet Treats Tipping Your Scale?

What proportion of daily calories would you guess the average American “spends” on “grain-based desserts” (cookies, sweet rolls, pastries, donuts, cakes, pies, cobblers, etc)?

Grain-based desserts are actually the leading source of calories in the average American diet for all people over age two! Yikes, no kidding! They are also a leading source of solid (saturated) fats, sugar and refined grains (three things we eat too much of).[i]

There are two notable takeaways from these facts:

• If these “indulgence” calories were done away with we would see significant drops in overweight and obesity.
• The overall quality of the average American’s diet leaves us overfed and undernourished. That’s because we can not get enough of many nutrients when significant chunks of the calories we eat are spent on low-nutrient/high-calorie choices. 

It’s no wonder that more than half of us don’t get enough magnesium, only about 40% of us get enough vitamin A, and only around 33% of us get enough vitamin C, etc., etc.[ii]

What do you think an appropriate amount of these kinds of (dessert and treat type) foods in your diet is? A good rule of thumb is not more than 10% of your daily calories should go to an “indulgences” budget.

For example, a women who needs 1,800-calories per day would have an 180-calorie per day (or 1,260-calories per week) in an indulgences budget. A man who needs 2,400-calories per day would have a 240-calorie per day (or 1,680-calories per week) indulgences budget. [See calorie budgets for weight maintenance, or for weight loss.]

It strikes me that what many of us need however, is a paradigm shift in how we think about food indulgences. Brain research of late indicates that the more we eat a “treat” the less enjoyment we derive from it. Like a drug addict, some of us eat more and more (unconsciously) seeking the pleasure level they used to experience.

There’s also the problem that culturally we’ve kind of thrown out any rules around eating—it’s pretty much considered normal to eat anytime anywhere these days. People who follow a 3-meals and 2-3 snacks per day pattern (a structure to eating that used to be the norm) tend to eat better quality diets. This is something successful losers usually figure out on their road to success.

The Bottom Line: Indulgences will be enjoyed more if you have fewer of them!

Actionable Advice: Replace some indulgences with healthy foods that you need more of. For instance: try things like apple slices with some nut butter, low-fat vanilla yogurt with berries, or whole-grain crackers with hummus. Do set aside an appropriate indulgences budget for the treats that you enjoy the most, and enjoy them!

All the best,
Dorene

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[i] Food Surveys Research Group NHANES 2007-08
[ii] What We Eat in America