I Blew It...

How many times during our weight loss journeys do we think this? We're faced with seemingly impossible situations and end up caving and giving in... then we think... "I blew it." But how often does it stop there? In "The Thin Commandments" Dr Stephen Gullo refers to this as the "I blew it" Syndrome. We fall down and instead of getting right back up, it turns into a spiral straight downhill. One bite, turns to a whole meal binge, which turns to a whole day, which leads to a whole week and before you know it, you're right back in your old habits and way off track. Then one day you look up and wonder how on earth you got there!

No person gets fat off of one pasta dish or a few hors d'oeuvres. What happens is though that when the "I Blew It" Syndrome kicks in we lose control... the problem is not with the food.. it's with the mindset and behavior. Dr Gullo lists the issues that arise when we let this mindset take over.

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1) Sets up an impossible tension in your life: that you have to be either perfect or a failure.
2)Lets your mental screen go blank, so you shut down everything that you've learned about food management.
3)Lets mistakes pile up, which drowns your motivation, skews your perspective, and overwhelms your willpower.
4)Destroys focus on your eating and weight control. (Studies all show that staying focused on your eating behavior is what makes you a winner.)
5)Is self-defeating. It cuts off learning from the mistake and locks you into a pattern of repeating it.
6)Only helps you learn that you're gaining weight, which is obvious.
7)Ruins your chance to cut off the mistake and keep any weight gain small and temporary
8)Keeps you from proving to yourself that you can stop and correct the error.
9)Turns a few minutes of unwise eating into something that will take days, months, or even years to make up for.
10)Paralyzes you into a mode of helplessness that lets one mistake end up becoming thousands of calories
11)Doesn't do justice to your intelligence, your life smarts.
12)Doesn't make you lose weight; it only makes you lose hope.
13)Doesn't answer the most important question of all: What went wrong in this situation and what could I do differently?"

When you feel the "I Blew It" Syndrome taking over it's time to take a step back. Physically tell yourself - "STOP IT!!!" By doing this you regain control. You remind yourself that YOU not FOOD has the power. You have control of what you put in your mouth. That bag of chips does not open itself up and pour itself down your throat. So you ate 1 handful... so what.... STOP! Get right back on track and you will succeed knowing that you have overcome a potentially very detrimental situation.

Make yourself a strategy for what to do next time you start to slip. Plan out daily menus and activities. Bordom is never a good thing on a new way of eating. Get out and get moving! You'll get your mind off of what you had wanted to do in the first place. Determine to yourself that no matter what you do or where you are, good choices will be availble. If you are going to be somewhere that you KNOW there will not be an acceptable option, eat something before hand so that you won't be tempted to give in when the opportunity comes. Even if it is not necessarily on your program or way of eating, having the mentality that you will find a way can be empowering. A good choice even when not the "best" choice is better than a bad one!

So promise me something... Promise you'll never say "I Blew It" again... you didn't blow it... just STOP.