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…
At age 30 I was too thin and thought I needed to lose weight. At 49 my desired weight and my healthy weight will look different.
Day 3– work in progress. I’m not sure I do this, but will begin to pay more attention so that I can change this behavior as I see it happening.
I am def an emotional eater. So I need to be super aware next time I am down, as I make poor food choices then
I like this exercise and can see myself using it often. I need to refocus my enjoy and look at the positive steps I made today instead of focusing on the negative.
judgment/observation recorded in my journal. This may need to be a regular exercise for me.
This is a good one, because once I change my negative thought about the way I eat. Then maybe I can my negative thinking about everything.
great idea! positive thinking and fixing the problem instead of tearing myself down.
Well, this will be interesting. I might end up with nothing to say to myself at the end of the day. LOL Oh wait, I mean I will be nice about it now.
Totally guilty of judging myself. Learning to set more attainable smaller goals and then I don’t feel so defeated.
I have gotten a lot better about being so hard on myself, my husband really hates it and I don’t really like it either. Hoping by the end of the day my list isn’t too long!
Ha. I wear a labcoat everyday so this should be cake. Sorry! This should be some sort of low-cal fruit salad. 😀
Iam the one that keeps me from moving forward….Stop judging and look at your thought pattern for the day.
Its seems like once you reach the weight I am at its so hard to remain positive, its going to be a daily challenge for me.
This challenge is a great reminder to stay positive. Walked one mile and climbed 15 flights of stairs. Now to just get this eating in line. On my way.
This is a toughy but an incredibly important one. It is something I have always found to be integral to ANY change. To observe and not judge.
This “worthless” theme keeps coming up in my observations. Maybe I have more self-esteem issues that I thought. I will work on addressing that.
I like the stepping back and observing. My struggle is that I’m only eating little bits all day, and treats, because I quit smoking.
Judging gets us nowhere. Observation can lead to solutions and action. Good reminder. I plan to take notes about my day today. More than just a food diary. More of a lab report. 🙂
This challenge is tough….. I am doing it but I am not as harsh as your examples so I am having a hard time telling when I am self defeating…..Will need to keep doing this one on going!
Ok I can say this is the easiest challenge so far…I’m not one to judge myself. In fact, I look pretty good in a lab coat 🙂