Free Diet Rehab: 28 Days to Finally Stop Craving the Foods That Make You Fat by Mike Dow, Antonia Blyth Page A

probably never get the respect I deserve at my current job—I obviously should quit.”
     
    REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
    “I didn’t lose weight this week—but I did two booster activities and feel like I made some healthy choices. I think I’m taking baby steps and making progress, even though I have a long way to go.”
    “Terry and I clearly see things differently when it comes to this. But we do usually agree on things. Maybe this is going to have to be an ‘agree to disagree’ situation.”
    “I think I could do more to earn respect at my job—perhaps I’ll find ways to seek out additional responsibilities or have a well-timed conversation with my boss next week.”
    Giving up polarization does not mean that you stop taking negative factors into account. It means that you put them in context. When we’re trying to make lots of changes, we often take two steps forward and one step backward, or sometimes even one step forward and two steps backward. Seeing the situation in a polarized way means we’re far too excited about the progress—and then far too disappointed when we take that backward step. If we can reframe our thinking to accommodate all the different possibilities, we can operate on a more even keel.
     
    Pitfall #6: Psychic
    This is the frame of mind in which we’re sure we know what another person is thinking, we believe he or she should know what we’re thinking and what we need, and we also think we know the future. In other words, we are sure of a lot of things that we actually can’t really know.
    PITFALL THOUGHTS:
    “If he cared about me, he’d see I was struggling and help me by eating healthy foods with me.”
    “She’s not going to understand why I can’t bring dessert to the party.”
    “I know if I go, everyone will be thinking how fat I am.”
     
    REFRAMED THOUGHTS:
    “I’m going to tell him just how hard this really is for me, and I bet if I asked him to support me by trying a few booster foods, too, he would.”
    “She may or may not understand, but let me try explaining it to her and asking for her support—she might surprise me!”
    “I feel self-conscious, but I have no idea what other people are thinking about me or even if they’re thinking about me at all.”
    Giving up our “psychic” pitfall thinking can be very difficult because it often feels as though we’re giving up our claim to know the truth and to protect ourselves. Sometimes our instincts are right on target and we have to listen to them; sometimes another person has hurt or disappointed us repeatedly, and we have to protect ourselves from trusting them again.
    Sometimes, though, we’re just living inside our own fears, wishes, and projections, and what we “know” is not the truth at all but merely a story we’ve imagined. Being rigorous with yourself about what you know and don’t know—or at least about being open to the possibility that you might not know—is a good antidote for this “psychic” pitfall. Committing to telling other people what we’d like them to do in positive and specific language—as opposed to telling them what they’re not doing in vague terms—is another good reframing device.
     
    Pitfall #7: Permanence
    Another name for this pitfall is “using the past or present to judge the future.” I personally struggle a lot with this one. If I try something a few times and it doesn’t work out, I have a hard time believing that it will ever work out, even when logic and rationality tell me that I’m giving up way too soon. I’m also prone to think, “I’ve always been this way—I can’t change,” even though I have the privilege to watch people’s transformations every single day in my practice. Permanence also makes us feel like the bad way we’re currently feeling will always be the way we feel—which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, because we’re less likely to take action that will create change.
    PITFALL THOUGHTS:
    “I’ve never been able to do lose