Yesterday I was at a continuing education meeting for financial advisors. One of the topics was Behavioral Finance, how our clients brain's work and how they make decisions. I learned a lot about how the brain works: all decisions go through our emotions, when we have had a trauma we avoid the same kind of pain in the future, we are programmed to do what the pack does, follow the herd, the way the memory works if we see a problem like one we have come across in the past we have an automatic response.
Here's a question that he asked: "If I paid $1.10 for a candy bar and a piece of gum. How much did the gum cost if the candy bar cost $1 more than the gum? Quick what is your answer? Are you sure? (think about it and I will give you the answer at the end).
The presenter was one of the passengers on the flight that landed in the Hudson last winter with the pilot Sullenberger, who was in the news today making his first flight since the Hudson river landing. The presenter still has sweaty palms and a racing heart getting on every flight, just like all of our clients investing in the market. Just like me every time I step on the scale when I haven't been perfect in my eating and exercise. I think in the back of my mind, how am I going to keep this weight off. I have dieted lots in the past and sometimes it worked and some times it didn't, but I always gained back the weight and then some... in the past. So, I need new thinking.
Today at my African Bible Study, a passage was read from the New Testament about not putting new wine into old wine skins. Not using old thinking to solve new problems. I am using old habits and thinking and managing my weight with an old size 20W mind. I still eat large quantities of food (cabbage and lettuce) that fill me up, rather than smaller portions like my husband. Maybe I need to have a new brain to go along with my new skin. Down yesterday and today to 185 very close to 50pounds lower than my highest weight. So I see a food problem and I use the same thinking that got me most recently to 234 pounds.
Coming back from Greensboro yesterday I went to the outlets I like in Burlington and realized that I can not shop at Lane Bryant or Dress Barn Woman anymore. I walked in to Dress Barn Woman and realized my mistake and walked right out. WOW- old thinking. Nothing in there fits me now.
New thinking is smaller portions, not eating because it is time to eat, not eating out of boredom, as entertainment, eating to feel not hungry not to feel full. Small enjoyable meals. I have never been a size 10, so I am not sure what that brain does, but I am trying to figure it out.
(I like everyone else in the room and all the other audiences he asked said the gum was 10 cents, actually the gum was 5 cents and the candy was $1.05)
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Ha! I didn't say 10 cents, I said 5, but that is probably because that is such a typical SAT problem and I have been coaching SATs as a small but regular part of my work now for over a decade. That is just the type of trick question the Education Testing Service loves to put on the test to fool most test takers in the most difficult math section (which they aim for 80% or more to get wrong). If repetition and habit can get me to answer that question right, the same can be said for learning to think with a size 10 brain!! This is encouraging indeed. You know, I've read....and the experience of friends and family members back this up....that every time one goes through another "end smoking" program...one does get closer to one's goal....and that the average smoker has to give up smoking about 7 times before it "sticks". Maybe this is true for weight management as well. If all of my practice on SATs via my coaching work leads me to instinctively answering "5" on that problem.........the continued focus and multi-media engagement of the weight management modality (as in this blog and my interactive approach)...is a way of tweakig my brain to think differently about food and my relationship with it as well as my relationship with movement and my body. Thanks, Kari, for continuing to post and helping me to engage my own imperfect brain and body with the process. New wine skins are emerging as I type!!!
ReplyDelete