Maria's Last Diet

by Maria's Last Diet

When it comes to dieting, how do you evaluate your efforts?

A.    by how well you are mastering various dieting skills
B.    according to how far you’ve moved toward your goal
C.    what mistakes you’ve avoided making

You probably use all three ways of evaluating your efforts. As you can see, each way of evaluating your dieting efforts orients you differently to the dieting process.

Let’s say you have a social occasion coming up, one with good friends where you will be spending a long weekend together at their house and they will have some of their friends over to meet you. Sounds like it will be quite an ordeal if you’re trying to lose weight, doesn’t it?

If you make an “A style” evaluation, you might key on such things as:

•    the plan I made ahead of time worked well
•    I was able to substitute non-food rewards (e.g., some private time) 
•    I couldn’t keep my long-term goals in mind as well as I had hoped
•    I ate like I eat when I’m at home
•    I enjoyed the dieting challenges of this weekend

The “B style” evaluation could go like this:

•    I didn’t gain any weight
•    When I get home, I’ll only have a pound or two to lose.
•    I’m proud that I’m doing as well as any other dieter in this situation
•    I can see that I’m doing better than the average dieter given the circumstances

The “C style” evaluation could sound something like:

•    I have avoided doing my worst
•    I haven’t let my diet go completely
•    I could have done a lot more wrong than I did
•    the fear of blowing it kept me on track

Keep in mind the dieting evaluation style you are using and switch it if you need to orient yourself differently to the dieting process.