How to Think Thin Blog

I’ve noticed something about myself that seems, at first glance, to be almost unreasonable: When I decide to go off my healthy diet and eat anything I want, I also end up spending more money and leaving projects unfinished. Is there a connection?

I think there is. I think that self-control (or the lack of it) is a major cause of my own recurring weight problems. When I follow my own commitment to eat the right foods, I strengthen my ability to restrain myself in other ways, too. I think about it before spending money on a garden plant I love, but don’t really need. I sit down and finish the baby blanket I started for my new grandson.

On the other hand, when I slack off on my diet, I seem to give myself permission to slack off on other important things, too. My bank account dwindles, the new website I’m supposed to be building sits there, unfinished…

This brings me to the philosophy of the Solution-Focused Brief Therapy folks. Therapists who use this technique help their clients with addictive behaviors look for the times when the client doesn’t drink, or eat too much, or spend too much money. In other words, there are times in every person’s life, even the most hardened addict’s, when they don’t even think about their chosen substance. This is also true for people who have obsessive-compulsive disorders, and is certainly true for people who eat too much and gain too much weight.

For me, the thing that “works” in all areas of my life is to remain focused on a healthy diet. When I say no to the pasta with cream-laden sauce, this minor self-denial increases my self-control in other areas of my life, too. It could also be possible that starting and maintaining a conscious budget would make it easier to diet - or if I started a large project and forced myself to finish it, the self-control I needed in that area could also spill over to my weight control issues. They seem unrelated, but experience has shown me that they all work together somehow. My job is to make the most of it.

Making use of the solution-focused brief therapy idea is all about looking at what works, and refusing to focus on the times when you fail. And that’s kind of a nice way to look at life in general, isn’t it?

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