DAY 42: How to Get to Carnegie Hall

The 42nd and last step in the Beck Diet Solution is to practice, practice, practice.

Dr. Beck introduces the step with these kudos:

Congratulations! You've learned the Cognitive Therapy skills you need to think like a thin person. The longer you use these new thinking skills, the more automatic they'll become. Dieting will continue to get easier. ... Your thinking has fundamentally changed in the past six weeks.

And she's completely right. I am thinking like a thin person now, having changed my life through the skills she's taught me.

Then Dr. Beck promises "rough patches" -- times when I'll give in to cravings, forget to give myself credit, go off my food plan, even question whether all this work and sacrifice is worth the time and effort. But she also promises these rough patches are TEMPORARY. And she's completely right about that too. I just have to remember it, and store up confidence and motivation while I'm still feeling strong and excited about my weight loss.

Finally, Dr. Beck provides Reminders to Think Thin, which are essentially the Sabotaging Thought/Helpful Response pairs she's provided throughout the program. These Reminders reinforce the Cognitive Therapy for unplanned eating, overeating, making excuses, gaining some weight, feelings of unfairness, and most important:

Sabotaging Thought: Now that I've lost weight, I can stop being so careful.
Helpful Response: If I want to keep the weight off, I need to use the techniques I've learned for the rest of my life. If I don't continue to maintain my new mindset and eating behaviors, I'll invariably gain back weight.

This reminder will be especially helpful as I move forward on my own, and the other Reminders will be useful too, as I practice, practice, practice thinking like a thin person while I truly turn into one!