WOW

Yesterday was a typical Monday. It was hard dragging myself out of bed after a relaxing weekend, even more so because it was a rainy Monday ... I won't complain about the rain though, after the summer drought we had. The rain did stop me from venturing out on my lunch-hour which is good and bad. My "what to have for lunch" decision was pretty much made for me. I had my frozen "Smart Ones" meal from the office freezer. These meals really keep my calorie count down. They fill me up enough, if I'm busy, not to feel the need to head to the vending machine and I can eat a more substantial dinner. On the other hand, I didn't get any walking in. That's something that's been lacking the past week.

I arrived at my TOPS meeting early, anxious to step on the scale. I was a little nervous too and it's weird what I was nervous about ... I didn't want a huge loss. Huh, does that make sense? I just didn't want it to be superficial and really be hard to lose this coming week. Am I playing head games again? It was a loss of 3# which taking into account that I stayed the same last week meant that over the last two weigh-ins, I was at my goal of losing 1.5# per week. Yeah!!

I gave the program on Letting Things Go and Stinkin' Thinkin'. I think it went over well and got a lot of feedback. It always helps me in doing the research too. The ten different types are

1. All-or-nothing thinking
2. Overgeneralization (it always happens to me)
3. Mental Filter (picking out a single event and dwelling on it ... great party but I didn't make enough salad so the evening was ruined)
4. Discounting the positive (reject positive experiences)
5. Jumping to Conclusions
6. Magnification (blowing things out of proportion -- mind reading -- fortune telling)
7. Emotional reasoning (I feel guilty, I must be rotten; I feel angry, that proves it's not my fault, I feel hopeles, I might as well give up)
8. "Should" statements
9. Labeling - I'm a jerk, I'm a failure, I'm an idiot. Labeling is quire irrational because you are not the same as what you do. You may have a failed attempt at something but that doesn't make you a failure. It was the attempt that failed.
10. Personalization and Blame.

#10 was my nemesis a few weeks ago. I posted a question on our high school class of '67 Facebook page that brought out what I thought was a lot of negative feedback (key words "I thought"). I felt it was bringing distention and division to the class and that it was MY FAULT. I was a mess for a week to the point where my family thought I should seek professional help. Stinkin' Thinkin'.  It's going to take a little while for what I've learned to sink in, i.e., the fear of losing too much (I did end up thinking more rationally).  I actually feel that I'm slowly getting there and you know what else I've discovered ... it helps my mood to remove this type of thinking, as well ... oh, the benefits!!