For people who are trying to change a behavior, it almost never goes smoothly. There are bumps in the road, places where you may slip backward for the moment. Slipping back into old patterns while you are trying ever so hard to do things differently is to be expected and even welcomed. As human beings, we simply do not learn without trial and error, without making mistakes.
Cheating while you are dieting provides you with a chance for critical learning. A review of research on error management training reported in the Journal of Applied Psychology showed that when people were encouraged to make errors and then learn from those errors, they outperformed those who were simply taught how to do things the exact right way. The findings in this review show how making mistakes helps people learn to plan, monitor and revise their strategies for solving problems—a perfect recipe for success.
Slips are an integral part of the process of change. If you are dieting, a slip can teach you a great deal about how to change your eating patterns. You can use a cheat as a power tool, especially if you are willing to think about it and not just beat yourself up over it. You can carefully consider how it happened, why it happened, and you can use that knowledge to create a plan that will be better for you in the future.
Here's how.
Find a relaxed time after your cheat. Take a paper and pencil and write your answers to the following:
- How was I feeling before I cheated on my diet?
- Was I reacting to something?
- Have I reacted that way before?
- Do I react that way in other areas of my life?
- Would I say this is a pattern with me?
- Have I ever found a way to break this pattern?
- How did I feel about breaking my dieting regimen?
- Do I have confidence in my ability to do something different?
- Is there a high-risk cheating situation coming up for me within the next week?
- Write out five strategies that you can use to help you deal with the high-risk situation you anticipate.
These are steps in the right direction. By taking these steps, you will be learning new behavior. This is the way to break your habit of cheating while dieting. You will begin to achieve a number of small successes and this will build your confidence, even if you still have moments when you fail. Over time, you will have fewer and fewer slips.
Practice the 10 steps outlined above and you will be able to use cheating as a tool for permanent change. You will be taking hold of a cheat and using it to your advantage. This will give you invaluable emotional and thinking skills that will support you every step of the way to weight-loss success.
Success in any endeavor does not depend on doing everything right. Success has much more to do with what happens when things don't go just right. Learning from your dieting mistakes will sharpen your problem solving techniques.
Use the steps, and lose the weight you want to lose. Try it—it really works.
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