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 thought I wasn’t judgy about my weight loss but then I thought of some of the negative things that run in my head and discovered Iws wrong! Now I just have to get into the habit of reframing my negative thoughts about my weight loss journey as much as I reframe my judgments about other aspects of my life.
Done! Three for three so far 🙂
Lesson done! Now to exercise
This is very exciting to try. I never thought to do this before.
Did 15 min of moving today. Felt really great!
What a great idea! It puts a new spin on things.
Good mindset change. I will try my best.
Several ‘judgements’ written down and analysed 🙂 Quite a lot to think about!
I must go fish out those old photos and remember what I COULD look like soon ..
Did 25 mins of skating today because I did not have time yesterday to do it. Lab coat is on.
The weight, as well as other things, are the symptoms. I need to take the time to look after myself. I need to take a step, and then take another step…
This is going to be a hard step for me. I have a feeling I’ll have to revisit it several times over the next 30 days, but I will do my best!
doing this day made me realize what negative self talk I give myself when I fall short or mess up. enough of that. great exercise.
I am less of a judger and more of an excuse maker. I do tend to come down on myself when I let my excuses get the better of me. Great exercise.
Hmmm, going from judge to observer, sounds easy, but that nagging, judging voice is hard to lose. This isn’t going to be as easy as it sounds.
I have had a rough couple years emotionally and I am starting to realize it effected more than my mood. This is step one in getting “me” back.
Hating my body doesn’t change my body! I have wasted a lot of energy focussing on the problem instead of doing something about it. Lightbulb!
Being “ready” to turn my negative thoughts around about any missteps actually kept me more mindful and prevented them all together!
Stop beating myself up – check! Its tough for my inner perfectionist but I have to remind myself its ok to have a B+ average with my diet, otherwise I fall in to A+ or nothing and give up.
I am definitely overly critical with myself; So, this will be a good exercise for me to work on. I think I’ll keep a little notepad in my purse or make a note on my phone to observe my critiques.