I read this on the Over Fifty Forum, it was posted by a woman who posts these from a site she subscribes to and I thought I'd share it:

Raising the consequences of failure (and psyching yourself out)

Posted: 12 Jul 2012 02:43 AM PDT

I'm reading a pretty interesting book right now: "The Accidental Creative: how to be brilliant at a moment's notice" (cool title, right?) and the author brought up this scenario:

"...imagine  that there is a wood plank lying across the floor, twenty feet long and six inches wide."  If I asked you whether you could walk across it, what would you say?  If I asked you to try to walk across it, would you be willing to attempt it?  I bet most of you would be willing to at least try -- and more than likely, most of you would be successful.

But....

"...imagine that the plank has been elevated to a height of one hundred feet in the air and is suspended between two buildings."  Now what would your answer be?  Could you walk across?  Would you try?

Interestingly enough, the skills you need to be successful in this task haven't changed.  If you said "yes", you would do the first task but "no" to the second, why is that?  It's not any more technically difficult -- but.... the results of failure between the two tasks are much different, aren't they?

Let's think about all the things you do everyday:

You get out of bed.
You do some kind of grooming routine.
You change your clothes.
You go to work.
You take care of your kids.
You are kind to others even when you don't really want to be.
You wait at traffic lights.
You listen to your boss.

I could go on but I won't.

There are lots of things in any given day that you do -- because you have to.

Why should weight management be any different?  They are basic skills -- eating less than your mouth wants to.  Thinking before you eat something left out on the break table.  Not giving in to the tractor beam of the drive-thru.

Could it be that we don't follow through on these goals because the psychological "risk" of failure feels like it has gone up?  Have you ever heard yourself say, "I might as well have this now because sooner or later I know I'm going to give in anyway."?  So you let yourself off the hook because you do not believe you will ultimately be successful and the perceived risk of failure further down the line is greater (once everyone has seen how much weight you've lost, you've bought all new clothes and are just settling in to feeling pretty good about yourself) that you're afraid to fully commit to this new lifestyle -- so you give up while the board is still on the floor because you're afraid you won't be able to do it when you're 100 feet off the ground?

Hmmmm.....is that the kind of thinking that gonna get you some place you want to be?

LOL. . .  not laughing at you, but because of the symptoms. . . my own experience with them is one where I was at work, got up from my desk to do something, was dizzy, heart palpitations, sweating profusely and this was 10 or so years ago when I weighed about 230 lbs., so I go to the hospital because with my family history I was sure it was a heart attack, 1.5 days later, after having my blood drawn every so many hours, because that's how they determine if you've had a heart attack and sometimes it takes up to 24 hours for the markers to show up in your bloodstream, enduring the ER, actually having a person die in the next area, because there were no rooms upstairs for me, the doctor told me that in all likelihood it was a hot flash, as it can mimic symptoms of a heart attack for those who've never had one. . . I felt like a total idiot until about a week or two later, Oprah had a show about it and she experienced the exact same thing I did. . .

Nope, not for sissies, but thankfully, I have not had many, seems since I had my surgery I've had more than I did the entire time prior, but usually happens in the summer when it is extremely hot. . .

Hugs, L

Just for today, I will try very hard not to eat past my full point.  I had an issue last night.  I have Reactive Hypoglycemic, and a couple hours after my sushi dinner, my vision got narrow, I felt drunk (which I now HATE HATE HATE), and my legs got week.  I thought I was having an RH episode, so I grabbed a bowl of cereal and wolfed it down.  But instead of feeling better, I started to feel way worse.  I got seriously hot -- like it felt like my temp was 500 degrees.  And then I was sweating.  I am always cold, and rarely sweat.  Even in that 100 degree heat, I was sleeping with the ceiling fan and no AC.  But yesterday my eyes were sweating, my nose, upper lip, armpits -- hell, even my knees were sweating.

It took a few minutes, but then I realized what it was -- a freakin' HOT FLASH.  This menopause crap is not for sissies!  I had to lay down after that.  My heard was racing and took quite a while to return to normal.

Howdy all... been super busy with work so I've been lurking but not posting much.

Working both jobs today.. debating on what, if anything I am going to do tonight.  Tomorrow morning I think I am going to head to synagogue.  I haven't been there in months.  I'm not sure how I feel about that.. on one hand I feel guilty that I haven't been going, but on the other hand I have noticed where only one person has really reached out to me to find out why I haven't been there and that bothers me.  It's like it doesn't even matter to anyone that I'm not there.  I'm torn and probably won't decide until the morning.  

I got a call from the camp advisor yesterday about Siehara.  She is concerned b/c Siehara is not participating in many activities and keeps saying she wants to come home.  I'm not really sure what's going on.  I can only guess that something happened with another camper and she doesn't want to deal with it.  My cousin, the nurse, told me that there were some new campers coming from Ethiopia for the second session and she's hoping that seeing more Jews of Color around camp will help.  

Visiting day is Sunday so I will talk to Siehara and we have a time set aside to talk to her advisor about how we can help her to enjoy the second session.  I made some SF choc. chip cookies that I will bring for her.  She likes them and it will be a nice treat.  I can only give her a couple, though, because they are not allowed to keep food in the bunks.  As of now, her brother is also coming with me!!  I texted him yesterday to see if he had written to her b /c she has not really gotten any letters from anyone but me and Neil and we started discussing visiting day.  He wants to come and I think that will be a nice surprise for her.  I am also going to bring her guitar up.  She meant to bring it at the beginning of summer so she could learn from some people up there, but forgot it.  I bought her a book that will teach her, so I hope that will lift her spirits.   

Other than that, not much going on here... just working a lot and trying to relax during the little bit of spare time I have.  Hope everyone enjoys the day... I'm not superstitious so I won't bring up Friday the 13th... oops.... just did... lol

I personally cannot use milk to make protein shakes.  I have the same problem you seem to be having when  do.  I've found my best shakes are made with no sugar added vanilla almond milk.