I don’t know about you, but I’ve always been the kind of person to beat myself up if I slip off the diet wagon. I used to get so wound up about diet slips that I’d totally defeat myself by beating my self-esteem to a pulp and then completely giving up. I was amazingly efficient at it too. One bowl of ice cream or potato chips and I’d start hammering away at my psyche with all sorts of negative self talk like:
“You are such a loser! No wonder you can’t lose weight, you just keep going back to all the stuff that makes you fat. You’re always going to be fat! Why don’t you just stop pretending that you’re going to do what you need to do to lose weight and just resign yourself to being the fat, ugly, slob you are!”
I’m here to tell you that you just can’t let that kind of talk happen – not even in the privacy of your own head. No matter what it is, if you tell yourself something enough times over again, you’ll begin to really believe it. If you have fallen into this cycle of trying and then beating yourself up, LET IT GO!
You can’t get yesterday back, but tomorrow is always full of fresh, new beginnings. Don’t fall prey to guilt and negative self talk. You’ve got to be your first a best supporter. Without your own support, you’ll never achieve your goals.
Instead of the negative self talk when you fall off the wagon and succumb to comfort food, cut yourself some slack. Try replacing that degrading, abusive self talk with a more positive approach like this:
“O.K. You had a little rough patch. You’ve got to appreciate it for what it was: just a little break in the monotony. You haven’t lost the race. You just have to pick yourself up, learn from the experience and the guilt and move on. This will not stop you from reaching your goals. It is just a minor detour. There is no sense in suffering over this. Just make your next meal a healthy one and get yourself back on track. Let it go.”
If you’re going to achieve your weight loss goals, you have to be your biggest supporter. If you can’t encourage yourself, no amount of friends, family, trainers or nutritionists will be able to help you. Let the guilt go and the weight will follow.