Give Me Strength
 

Trying yet again to be the nice guy that he is, our manager brought in doughnuts!
We have all been working very hard in our department over time, training etc. I know he is only trying to show his appreciation for all the hard work we do.
The boxes started out behind my cube this morning, now they are in the front of the room.
I keep telling myself they are poison, I already had breakfast and I don’t need them….BUT IT IS SO HARD. I hear them calling my name.
I have a sneaky suspicion doughnuts might be a trigger food. What do others do when faced with a situation like this?

DietDevil :devil:

:hug::dust:

I am sorry that so sucks. Maybe think about having one of your favorite lunches or dinners that is still healthy. Then you can focus on that instead?

You can do it!

It won't taste as good as you think it will. Whenever I have a craving for something I get this strange "mouth taste" like my mind is imagining how it will taste. My brain exaggerates terribly- it never tastes as good as I thought it would.

What really works for me is that you need to imagine that someone else has touched every single one of the donuts, trying to find the right one. Maybe someone sneezed on them. What if your manager's kids were in the car with him when he got them and they touched the donuts? :) Did they wash their hands this morning?

Just sayin.

Think about this: donuts will always be there to eat!

Maybe bring a snack that you like that is healthy and tell yourself this is my snack this is going to help me reach my goal the donuts are just going to set me back. ask yourself what's more important at the time. plus it's ok to cheat every now and then just don't go over board

This is my personal journey, it may not work for anyone else.

But I was able to go grain free. It had a PROFOUND impact on my hunger. Unless you experience it, you can't imagine. Nothing triggers me anymore.

I found something yesterday that might help people. Yeah it is hard to make the transition. Someone likened it to childbirth. Obviously I don't know about that.

But she was saying you know how people say I am never doing that again when they have just had a child? Well you kind of forget how hard it is...but after the first one people know it isn't particularly pleasant but they want the joy of being a parent.

Well the transition is not particularly pleasant. But then you can, if it works, be hunger free for the rest of your life. Which next to my wife and daughter is about the most awesome thing and joy that has happened to me the last couple of decades. Cutting out non-veggie carbs many people talk about a 'flu' for a few days. You have to reawaken your bodies ability to burn and use stored fat as fuel.

I had a mild case of that. Then I had a few challenging weeks. After 3-4 weeks it was self-sustaining. Some people find it is a couple month transition period.

We have donuts every week, haven't had any since the journey. It gets easier and easier and easier. Now I personally have cheese. And meats and butter and some nuts and wonderful veggies. Plenty of wonderful stuff so I don't feel deprived at all.

And after the transition period very little will power needed. Many can do fine on moderation. But this is what worked for me, so I am presenting it as one possible way. I could not be happier with where it got me.

Oh now that just might work, if you really think that way you could gross yourself out big time. Doughnuts are poison and dirty :D

On a less dramatic scale then my going grain free suggestion (and I just started with wheat free then decided to go for it more), you can suggest or even bring in yourself cheeses, veggies, hummus, nuts, etc.

That has started happening where I am at. You might find a ton of people would rather have those than doughnuts. In fact I'd be surprised if that wasn't the case.

Stay strong!!! My co-worker brought me COOKIES last week. I was like, "Why do you hate me?" and he's like, "What? They're gluten free AND dairy free!" and I was like, "Yeah, but they're not CALORIE free!". And yeah, I ate them. And I totally regretted it. Don't give in! :)

Good advice already given, here's my suggestion: hot tea, lots of cups of hot tea! Hot tea will give you that full-belly, slightly oogly feeling that might help take the edge off too.

And I just hope the donuts get finished and gone SOON so the temptation will be over for you! Hang in there!

Sometimes I find it helpful to think about *why* I want a donut when I'm not hungry. Do I feel tired and want a quick pick-me-up? Then I grab a black coffee instead. Am I bored? Cranky? Sad? Then I need to figure out how to address these issues another way. Do I just want to taste something good? Well if I'm not hungry it's not going to taste that good. If I really, really want a donut (this is more rare than you'd think) then I pick one out, put it somewhere safe (so the hyenas I work with don't get it) and eat it along with my lunch (that I eat less of). That's my approach, but I also like the tea idea. Tea is delicious!

Find someone with gum and chew it! You can't sneak a doughnut while you chew gum :)

i tell myself often that, for example, donuts are everywhere...at every store...and i could go get a donut, or 3 or 20, anytime i want to...i don't need to eat the donuts in the staff room or right over there...because it's not the last donuts out there and, if i ever really REALLY TRULY want a donut that badly, they are always right there at the store and i can get one anytime i want

for me, that takes the mental pressure off myself because i struggle alot with feeling like i need to eat it ALL RIGHT NOW because it'll get eaten up by someone else and i won't get any....if i didn't know better, i'd swear food was scarce or restricted in my childhood but it really wasnt....i didn't grow up in poverty and i didn't grow up in a dysfunctional setting...but somehow i'm programmed to want ALL the food RIGHT NOW

This is just one of many articles on the subject:

http://articles.latimes.com/2013/jun...unger-20130627

If you can keep up resistance with having all your old foods on the plate, awesome. I personally had to just stop having fast food, doughnuts, potato chips, bread, pasta altogether.

Ultimately it was easier and wildly successful. I was just fighting hunger and urges all the time. Which were completely normal and expected for what I was eating.

It wasn't until I knocked out the above that I was just naturally hunger free 24/7. I then started adding the odd thing back in. Me, my wife, and daughter share one serving of fries now and have leftovers. Before one just for me would leave me famished.

If the various suggested straiges work for you: awesome. They never did for me until I fundamentally changed my Way of Eating. This is just how I succeeded, nothing more.

But to get back to my earlier post about people liking healthier choices at work. It is real for my workplace. When doughnuts are brought in maybe 20-30% of people have them. But almost everyone has veggies, cheese, hummus, fruit when it is brought to our breakfasts.

Donuts are not poison. You're giving them way too much power over you. They're not actually calling your name, that's just the voices in your head :)

It took me a while to understand this but I've figured out that most of the time when I'm craving something I see I'm not actually hungry. And if I realize that my stomach is actually not hungry then I can make a more appropriate decision. Let's say I was in your situation. If I was actually hungry I would eat a donut and enjoy every moment without guilt, I would do so publically not by hiding somewhere behind my desk. Then I'd check my hunger again and make sure I act accordingly, this donut may very well have just been my lunch or dinner depending on what time it is. I don't force lunch on myself just because it's time to eat.

OR I may find myself not hungry but still wanting to eat it. In that case I'll just tell myself that the donut shop around the corner from my house has much better donuts and if I'm going to eat a donut I'll wait until later when I can pick up a better tasting donut. Life is too short to waste it on mediocre donuts. Because if i DO eat that crappy little donut then I will for sure stop by and get a few of the good ones too.

The whole point is, if you spend all your time sending voodoo signals to the "poisonous" donut you're just setting yourself up to overindulge in something similar later. It happens to us all, you're just prolonging your craving, making it stronger and fiercer and then we binge. It's human, it's normal. Eat the donut, enjoy it, don't feel guilty about it and move on.

Wise words, Wannabeskinny. And not just the bolded ones; your entire post is spot on. But I just loved how you summed it all up in a nutshell, which is why I emphasized that particular sentence.

To DietDevil - It's amazing how demonizing a particular food can make it larger than life. I'm actually not a big donut fan myself, but there are days when nothing else will do.

Yesterday I had an interesting doughnut "experience" - I had a dentist appointment at 8:00 am and was to be at work at 10:00 a.m. Got finished at the dentist at 9:00 am and needed something quick to eat, as I work until 4:00 pm and generally don't bring any lunch to work & wait to eat until I get home, which is 5 minutes from work. So what to eat quickly? Humm....how about a doughnut? That ought to hit the spot. I was hungry but not ravenous when I left the dentist, so I went to the nearest doughnut shop and got a nice hot glazed doughnut. I sat in my car and ate it slowly, drinking my delicious hot, black coffee in between bites. It was really good and just what I needed to get me through my six-hour shift. (I don't react as many others do to a high-carb intake).

There was a time in my life when I would have been unable to concentrate at work for dealing with the guilt and shame of eating that doughnut. Not any more. I never gave another thought to what I'd eaten for breakfast, and if I'd wanted another one when I got off work that's exactly what I'd eaten for supper.

Wannabeskinny is so right; assigning any food as "bad" immediately brings it to the forefront of your food thoughts and desires. There is no such thing as good or bad foods. That's a gimmick the diet industry has used to manipulate people - with much success, unfortunately. If you think of it as just food without assigning it a label it no longer has power over you.

I might not eat another doughnut for years. Or I might eat one tomorrow.

But I can guarantee you one thing - you'll not see me thinking about doughnuts unless and until I decide I want one to eat.

And then I'll eat it and enjoy it - and not feel a bit of guilt about it.

I was thinking about this more and perhaps in a way all of the straiges worked for me. They are all about avoiding them. Well I personally avoid them all together. And to me they are poison. And I give what they do to me A LOT of respect. Having just one is totally not worth it, for me.

I didn't set out this way but it turns out my WOE is I eat things that are good for me. And they key is I am not deprived at all. I've found tons of stuff I love and are also healthy. Maybe it won't work for you. But why not go for it? Different strokes though.

My approach is it is poison. Slow acting but poison nonetheless. The doughnuts itself but also the making me hungry then I eat a candy bar after the doughnut. Then the candy bar leads to an ice cream. So maybe knocking them out wont work. But you never know until you try. And complete avoidance, if it works, is awesome. But if not less is better.

It's great that you've found a WOE that works for you and has also resulted in weight loss, diamondgeog. That you can restrict yourself in this way is quite remarkable. I applaud you for it and am happy that you have been so successful.

But the reality is that most people simply cannot maintain this sort of restriction long-term. It doesn't make them weak; it makes them human.

There's no harm in anyone trying out your WOE and perhaps the OP may opt to do so. Who knows? It may turn out to be the answer for her.

I can sense your zeal for your WOE and who can blame you? It has proven to be very successful for you. I know it's not for me - how? Because I've tried it. Several times. It was a bust every. single. time. And not just because of the "low carb flu" symptoms.

Any type of "diet" - no matter how reasonable or workable - requires SOME type of restriction and/or counting, measuring, you name it. For me, that's just something I can no longer tolerate. Why not? Because it makes me OBSESS about food. And that is NOT a good thing. I'm guessing your WOE does not make you obsess about food. If so, I envy you that!

Eating when you're hungry and stopping when you're no longer hungry is just, well, natural. And logical. But unfortunately not as simple as it sounds, particularly for people who have completely buried their hunger/fullness cues. Which dieting (of ANY kind) does to most people.

Hunger is NOT the enemy. Well, not in my opinion, anyway. Restriction is, for most people. If it weren't, every person who'd ever successfully dieted would have never gained their weight back.

And we know what THOSE statistics look like, unfortunately. :(

Doughnut Up Date
 

Thank you everyone for the sound advise. You all have some nice tips and tricks that work for you and I will be giving some of them a try.
I won my personal battle with the doughnuts and am proud of myself for doing so.
Doughnuts are a trigger food for me, eating one can cause a slippery slop that leads to other bad food choices so yes to me they are poison.
When I weighed in today I had lost 2.2 pounds this week! I know it was not just passing on the doughnut that helped the weight loss it was other good choices mad during the week and getting back into walking a couple of times a week. But I like to think it helped!
Thank you again for the advise everyone I really appreciate it.
DietDevil :devil:

Congratulations on the weight loss, DietDevil. And walking is always a good thing. It clears the mind and well, just makes you feel better! Your weight loss was likely more a result of calorie restriction as opposed to exercise, but never discount the benefits of moving your body.

Hot tea, iced coffee... Thinking about goal. Remembering nothing tastes as good as thin feels. Having snacks on hand... Fruits, veggies, nuts, string cheese, etc. I am learning to incorporate everything in moderation, like having half a serving of something like that and tracking it. I'm a calorie counter. But I realize that triggers foods can be hard to get a hold of, and I still struggle with this at times. But the moderation prevents all out binges for me, to have a little, so I don't feel deprived or like something is off limits or like I'm cheating on my diet. I can't imagine not eating a doughnut or piece of cake or cool ranch Doritos for the whole rest of my life. I'm trying to stick to a plan I can stick to forever and for me, it's accommodating foods like that in moderation. It's taking me years and many rounds of dieting to learn to treat this as a lifestyle, and not a diet where I cut everything out and race to the finish line, just to gain it all back. Just my 2 cents, for what it's worth.

put on your headsets and focus on a single task you want to do at a time. being focused on completing a task will sometimes remove other distractions.

Just a reminder guys, please if you want to PM eachother, feel free to do so but remember the OP came here for support :)

DietDevil - I am glad that you won the battle :)

DietDevil chips used to be that for me, now they are just a sometimes treat food and really have lost their power. I had to stay away for awhile, then portion control, then suddenly just didn't have the desire. Now I can have them on the side with a sandwich or something, or not.

Best of luck, you'll get there with the donuts, I feel identifying triggers is the first step in putting them I their rightful place...making them powerless. How you do that is as individual as everything else in this journey. :)
:sunny: