What you see is what you get. Not true. What you see is heavily influenced by your values, needs, and expectancies. This means you go beyond or fall short of the information that’s given. This can be easily understood if you think of remembering. You most always add to or take away from your memory of what happened, of what you saw, of what you did.

This is especially true when you have feelings riding on what you saw, what happened, and what you did. The stake you have in your self-image when it comes to overeating and weight gain heavily influences your perception of how much you actually ate, for instance. The same goes for eating fattening food. Feeling guilty and ashamed, not wanting to feel like a failure, and many other feelings influence the way you see things, the way you see yourself and the way you see (and remember) what you ate.

So what’s the corrective? How can you have veridical (truthful and accurate) perception, especially if you’re trying to lose your unwanted weight? One common way in regard to how much and what you ate is to write it down right away. Keep a log of your eating. Note what you ate, how much you ate, and when you ate it. There’s no fooling yourself (or anyone else) when you write down what and how much you ate.