I’ve realized that for months, I’ve been doing the model “wrong”. I’m not picking just one “thought”, I’m writing whole sentences. I wrote two models a day – one “unintentional” and one “intentional”. And I frequently follow the “unintentional” model.

Example from last week:

[Unintentional]
C: Sweets
T: It’s too hard to kick my sugar habit. I don’t want to. I want to still enjoy treats in my life. And my body is “pretty good”. Today, 126.7 lbs. That’s not half bad. So why take away something I love in life for some amorphous “better” version of me?
F: Apathy
A: Continue to eat a sweet treat every day, keep feeding my vicious sugar habit.
R: 126+ lbs, don’t break this destructive habit.

[Intentional]
C: Sweets
T: I can still have sweets, just not every day. This is what Brooke says to do about urges and cravings: “You allow yourself to feel the urge and you don’t respond to it. This is the only way to truly recover from overeating or overdrinking, or any type of buffering.” I CAN have the sweets. I just can’t have them every day. Try planning two treats a week…
F: Motivated
A: Plan a couple sweets this week (today, the special cake picked up from Blue Hill). Plan to have no other sweets for five days a week. *
R: 124-125 lbs (goal weight), break my destructive sugar habit.

(*Yeah, sounds like a good plan, right? But I didn’t follow it. I ate that entire cake in 4 days.)

Now I’m trying just one thought per model. My question: why is this different than the whole sentences I wrote before? I’m just trying this new approach starting today.

C: Sugar intake
T: I’ve been telling myself I want to quit sugar, but I don’t really want to quit sugar.
F: Honest
A: Get curious about why I don’t want to quit sugar.
R: Start figuring out how to live a plan that works for me, that I love (joy eats twice a week).