Quote:
Originally Posted by mousie
Have you read the Dr. Phil book? Whether you like the man or not, his book goes into WHY we eat, what the driving forces behind our decisions are. If you answer his questions/audits honestly, they can be eye-opening.
One of his good points is that willpower, like motivation, comes and goes and you cannot rely on it all the time. For those times your willpower burns out on you, you MUST have your environment set up to catch you. Get the stuff you know you shouldn't eat out of the house. Don't carry small change/bills to raid the office vending machine. Take money for black coffee ONLY to the coffeeshop for your break. Have meals prepared ahead of time so they're ready for you when you walk through the door in the evening. That sort of thing.
IMO, his book is well worth a read. Get the ideas that will help you out of whatever source it takes, right?
That's basically what I was going to say - not to rely on WILLpower but to use some BRAINpower

by doing what Dr. Phil says in his book - cleaning up your environment and that means getting rid of the 'red light' foods in your house, office, etc. as much as possible.
Think of it this way - if you were recovering from tobacco, drug or alcohol addiction, would you keep a carton of smokes or a fifth of Jack Daniels in your house and just say "well, I'll just rely on my WILLPOWER NOT to imbibe"...it just doesn't work out that way. Just like the bottle or the coffin nail sings to the alcohol/tobacco addict, so does the siren song of the Snack Fairy of the goodies in the fridge (and I bet most of us know EXACTLY what's in our pantries...yes??).
There is nothing wrong with cleaning up your environment - and if you have hubby or kids or whomever who 'has to have' their candy or ice cream or (fill in red light food here) then they can go out and buy it and keep it somewhere else, or better yet - cut down on their intake. (It's amazing, isn't it, how foods that even when I was a kid in the late 60's/early 70's were considered 'special occasion' or 'party' foods such as chips and ice cream are now - too often - 'must have' staples for many folks nowadays.)
Just my two cents as usual.
