What to Do When Faced With Temptation
Here is the 91st article in this great series of the Top 100 Weight Loss Tips. Each new article will bring you another great new top tip on how to successfully lose weight.
The last tip looked at why olive oil is so good for you from both a health and a weight loss standpoint.
This article looks at one of the problems faced by almost all dieters at some stage or another. It's that if being faced with something you badly want to eat but know you shouldn't. What do you do when faced with temptation for something you know you really shouldn't be eating? Read on...
Faced With Temptation? What to Do!
To eat or not to eat...
When you're actively trying to lose weight fast, what ever your reasons may be, situations are going to arise when you'll come up against one of the foods that are banned from your diet. In these cases you are likely going to be overcome with a desire to eat them.
So what do you do when you find yourself stuck in a dilemma of whether to give in to your sudden craving to eat it or not.
The diet books and podium thumping diet experts will probably tell you to be strong and resist temptation. That the craving will go away of its own accord an a short time, especially if you can walk away from the food and drink a glass of plain water instead. Sure, this is the textbook thing to do, but is it the right thing to do?
Just One Bite...
Modern dieting techniques are beginning to question this approach and instead are saying, if you really want it so bad, then cut off a small piece if possible and treat yourself. This way you satisfy your cravings by eating a small piece of what you want and putting the rest away for another day.
It follows the school of thought that if you're hungry for something, then go right ahead and eat it and don't go stressing yourself by denying yourself simple pleasures every now and again.
The way to gauge how effective this is for you is to start by taking a single mouthful of what you desire and making a point of chewing it over really slow and concentrating on the flavors, the textures and everything about the experience of enjoying that mouthful to its fullest extent.
This works whether it's a diet meal you prepared yourself, or you got from a diet food delivery program like Nutrisystem or Bistro MD and the like. When you finally get around to swallowing, tell yourself "My craving is completely satisfied now" and make it your intention to believe it totally.
That way, you have had your treat and satisfied your mental craving to taste the treat (whatever it was) by making full use of concentrating all of your senses on enjoying that moment and dragging it out for as long as possible to get the maximum satisfaction from it. When you do that, you'll realize you don't want any more and are quite happy to get back to your diet.
As an aside, when you do succumb to treating yourself, make sure you do it on a full stomach, sometime after eating a meal that is within your diet's guidelines.
This is extremely important, because by treating yourself when you are already full, you only have to satisfy a craving for the taste and experience of eating the treat. You do not have to also face the added prospect of satisfying hunger.
Avoid that Tempting Treat!
If you are hungry and you have your eye on a treat, then you must walk away from it. There is no way you will be strong enough to take only one bite of a treat when you are hungry, because in that case you have two very powerful urges to satisfy instead of just one.
The urge to satisfy the craving for a taste and experience of enjoying a treat can be dealt with, but try to overcome the addition load of the urge to satisfy hunger and you will most likely fail and eat the whole thing!
Why is this? Because hunger is an imperative that must be satisfied before all else.
That's why your meals should consist of a balance of foods that will fill you up, such as plenty of freshly cooked vegetables, meat (if you are not vegetarian) or fish, potatoes (rich in fiber and vitamins) and/or brown pasta or brown rice. Once you are full up, then you can have your treat because the hunger imperative has been satisfied with the meal and you will be much more able to resist taking a second bite!
All in all, when you know that there is room for a sneaky treat every now and then, a diet becomes much more doable and even enjoyable, especially when you are aiming to lose a few pounds for a forthcoming event that you have bought a special outfit for and you need to fit into it comfortably!
100 weight loss tips number 90 will follow in the next post!
[BACK TO TOP]
Posted on Sun, 21 Jun 2009 in Top 100 Weight Loss Tips | 0 Comments