I recently had a session with my client, Allison, with whom I’ve been working for a few months. In session, Allison told me about an experience she had over the weekend that she wasn’t feeling very happy about. Allison explained that one of her close friends was moving out of state and so over the weekend she had a goodbye party. At the party, there were drinks and passed appetizers. Allison found herself taking appetizer after appetizer and eating them while talking with her friends. Midway through the party, Allison realized that she was overeating and that she had lost track of how much she had already had. Allison told me that she went to the bathroom and read her Advantages List and her Response Cards, both of which she keeps on her phone. After taking a few moments to fortify her resolve and refocus, Allison went back to the party and didn’t eat another bite.
When Allison explained this to me she, she expressed disappointment over getting off track during the party. I, on the other hand, had a different view of the situation. Even though Allison had gotten off track during the party, she did something that can be extremely difficult to do: she got back on track in the middle of the party. She didn’t say to herself, “Well, I’ve already blown it for the party, I might as well keep eating whatever I want.” She also then didn’t go on to say to herself, “Well I’ve blown it for the day so I might as well keep eating whatever I want and get back on track tomorrow.” No! The moment Allison realized she had gotten off track, she immediately turned herself around and didn’t wait for the end of the party/the day/the week/the month to get back on track. I pointed out to Allison how significant this was because she has now proven to herself that whenever she gets off tack, she never has to wait even one moment longer to get back on track.
I reminded Allison that the most successful dieters and maintainers are not those who never make mistakes; rather they are those who make mistakes but get immediately back on track. Allison and I discussed the fact that she will continue to make mistakes for the rest of her life, but as long as she recovers from them immediately (as she did at the party), they will remain very minor and won’t negatively impact her weight.
Allison and I also took a few moments to assess the situation and figure out what had led her to get off track in the first place. Allison realized that the major problem was that she hadn’t gone into the party with a strong plan. She went in thinking she would have “just a few” bites to eat, but had nothing specific in mind. Allison also realized after the fact that she overate partly because she didn’t have a plan, partly because she was distracted talking to her friends, and partly because she was feeling upset and emotional about her friend leaving town. In order to better prepare herself for a similar situation in the future, Allison decided that she would ahead of time formulate a strong plan and make the effort to deliberately eat everything slowly and mindfully. And, if she knew that she might be going into a potentially emotional situation, like a good-bye party, Allison decided that she would read Response Cards ahead of time that specifically reminded her that eating for emotional reasons ultimately always has the opposite of the intended effect, meaning it makes her feel worse, not better.