Day 3: Trade Your Judge’s Robe For A Lab Coat | 30-Day Weight Loss-athon
Welcome to Day 3 of the 30-Day Weight Loss-athon! Today we make a very important mindset shift – one that can support or sabotage you as you fight the fat.
I suggest you read through the steps first, then take 10 minutes to complete them.
We only have 10 minutes, so you need to move fast, act quickly and stop over-thinking. Just throw yourself in. Ready?
What You Need:
- Pen
- Paper
- An open mind.
Step 1
A number of the tasks in the 30-Day Weight Loss-athon ask you to change the way you think. This shouldn’t be too much of a surprise – the reasons most people fail at losing weight tend to be psychological.
In this task the mindset shift is an especially challenging one. I’m asking you to stop judging and start observing what you do.
| Instead of judging… | Observe… |
| I’m such a fat cow for eating all that dessert | Having that tiny lunch really backfired – I ate twice as much dessert |
| I’m so lazy for not going to the gym today | Trying to fit exercise in after work doesn’t work for me. I’m more successful when I exercise in the morning. |
| What a pig! | Huh. I really ate a lot of junk today. I wonder why. |
Now I’m not asking you to stop judging in order to discover self-love, re-parent your inner child or heal the emotional wounds of your past. I want you to stop judging because it’s difficult to observe what’s going on when you’re busy self-flagellating.
To notice and learn, you need to step away from the whip.
I want you to observe what’s going on because you are highly individual. The particular combination of diet, exercise and mindset that will work for you, getting you to a fabulous weight and keeping you there, is one that can’t be formulated in advance. No book, system or program will have it ready-made for you. We have to discover it.
Which means we have to try things, observe the effect, do more when something works, try something else when it doesn’t.
So the challenge here is to take off your judge’s robes and put on your scientist’s coat. Visualize that if it helps.
Switching from judge to observer will take practice, and you may need to re-visit today’s task occasionally to remind yourself to notice, observe, question.
Step 2
For the rest of today’s time, get a notebook and list a few of the weight-related things you say to yourself that are judgmental. Don’t dwell on this, just get it down.
For each judgement, write down an observation instead. Just extract the information and ignore everything else – that stuff is what starts binge cycles.
See the examples above to help you.
Step 3
Decide that you are going to be a scientist for the rest of this month.
If you want to put those judge’s robes back on after the 30 days are over, then go for it.
But seriously, the lab coat is so much more flattering.
Check in!
And you’re done! Turn off the Bunsen burner before you leave. 🙂
Be sure to leave your comment below to check in and stay accountable. If you’re reading this by email or in a reader then please click here to leave your comment.
See you tomorrow…
I was kind of surprised how not judgy I am with my weight loss. Other aspects of my life yes but weight loss not so much. I did try the observe instead of judge with the other aspects and it was interesting.
I need to go to bed earlier so that I can get up earlier and exercise before I start my day. I am able to come up with way too many excuses in the evenings to not exercise. Also, I need to eat a snack before I leave work… A piece of fruit or handful of nuts, so that I am not soooo hungry when I get home that I am snacking on everything in sight while I am trying to get dinner prepared.
Did this assignment. It was very eye opening to see all the judgements that I make on myself about my lack of self control with sweets. Though in last 3 days I have been doing a much better job of watching what I am eating. Not perfect but much less on the sweets and more healthy foods.
Can’t wait to try this
I’m going to need reminders through the month to be a scientist and not judge.
Thank You Michele, I needed this today! I’m taking the Judges robe off and putting on the lab coat!
I have made sure that I am eating when I am hungry and eating only food I have packed. I am staying away from the candy jars at work as well as the baked goods. It feels good to have that control.
This was good! I am going to try to quit judging the past and move on to observing and working on the future! Today I took another walk with my 3 year old, 2 year old, and 10 month old. I realized how good it was for my oldest since he is actually tired enough to take a nap at the same time as the girls today! And now I have time to do my third day of weightloss-athon in the afternoon instead of the evening!
Basically for me its the same thing for everything. If I miss a goal, or don’t do what I had set out to do (weight loss, declutter, lifegoals anything) I say stuff like wow you really suck. I preach positivity and encourage friends and family to say positive stuff then do that to myself. Instead I need to know that I am worth the investment and taking time for me is not a bad thing. If I feel good it will overflow into other areas of my life. So yeah my judgement column was easy to fill in with things like wow you really suck at this, now if I can remember to jump right to the positive column or the rethought of you can make a new start right this minute! It’s funny the comment in the challenge was about this time of day not working for me for a work out, I had just said that to my husband before bed last night on another area of life I am trying to improve 🙂
I was able to take a 30 minute walk/jog with my 1 yr. old twins! I got home, put them to bed and did some jumping jacks! I always feel so much better about myself when I excersize and eat right. Being a mom of twins and a 3 1/2 yr. old keeps me on my toes. I find that when I excersize during the day, I feel good, but also feel more stressed out with time and all (I have a lot of physical/occuptaitonal therapy for my sons durig the week). During the evening I like to sit back and relax with my hubby. By the time the kids are in bed it’s 9 or 9:30. Craziness! With God, all things are possible! :o)
Observing is so much nicer than judging. Now I know I don’t have to do it all – all the time/all at once, but I have to do something. I have to move (even if only for 10 minutes). This is achievable. If I mess up one meal, I can make improvements at the next one — no more “just letting go for the rest of the day.”
This one I have. I try hard not to judge myself. I learned that 7 years ago on Weight Watchers. If I mess up, I look at why, and start fresh the next day, no berating here. Love these little 10 minute tips…
I just came back from a 45 min walk and I feel fabulous!!! Now the real talk starts at my place of work…where it is just go..go and GO!!! Always thinking about everyone else as I work at a family owned restaurant. As I am wearing my scientist lab coat today and for the next 30 days I will be objective to leaving time aside for me and do my best not to eat until I am sitting down and making a healthy eating decision instead of not realizing when and what I am eating. I am also starting a Zumba class today!!!
I have to say that if we were doing this prior to August 2011 I would have had a lot of judging about myself. I made up mind then that I was going to lose weight and so I did. I ended up going to the doctor who gave me medication to help me with the energy part. The problem with the reason I could not lose weight and keep it off is because I did not change my eating habits for good. Alll of my life I yo yo’d with fad diets loosing 30 pounds here and there but I always gained it back and always at least 10 extra pounds. I know that even though I have lost 47 pounds the medication will not be there forever and I will need to change those habits now. That is why I got your program. So I have lost a lot of weight and I have about 50 more to go before I am at what the doctor thinks I should be at, I love to look in the mirror now. I know it sounds vain but I look at myself in the mirror every chance I get. I put make-up on almost every day now and I love to get in front of the camera now. I do know that I do not ever want to go back to being that heavy ever again. So I am following your program to ensure that I can do what ever it takes not to get there again.
This is very hard. I will have to work at this everyday. It’s hard to get away from the negative thinking. I may not have had a motivational week but I am going to make better desions and keep trying!
I’m going to commit to this through April and hope to get myself motivated to do better. I know I can I just need to push a little harder. I too am a emotional eater but more like an emotional (soda) drinker. I’m constantly feeling disappointed that when I was lacking energy or feeling down I turn to a Dr. Pepper instead of a healthly outlet. Since losing my son of 17mths I’ve used that as an excuse to let myself eat and drink when I’m feeling sadl. I know I can’t continue to do this and for the sake of my other 4 children I need to do better. I know from experience if I walk in the morning and if I plan meals then I drink less soda and I feel much better I just need to keep motivated to accomplish this every day.
Now that I have realised how badly I want this, I have eaten well, I am going to do my 30 mins on the cross trainer again today. My biggest problem is emotional eating where I will go and just sabotage myself with biscuits, chocolates etc but I now have my list from day 1 which is a constant reminder of what I want and why I am doing this. So I will continue to observe my stress levels etc and ” walk away from the food” and find something else to take my mind off of it.
Listen, observe and question.
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