Never Cheat Again (part 1 of 3)

Good morning super star

I know that some of you begin each week, heck, maybe every morning with the promise to “be good.” (imagine the voice of E.T. when you read this) “BEEE GOOD.”
You tell yourself that today is the day and you genuinely mean it.  You put on your game face and prepare to refuse the baked goods at the office. You preprogram your mind to speed past the fast food place at lunch time or to only order French fries for the toddler in your life. You plan to turn a blind eye to the bowl of candy on the co-workers desk, after all you don’t even like Swedish Fish.  You vow to avoid the vending machine mid-afternoon, because truthfully, the Oreos don’t satisfy hunger.  You only make the Mac-n-cheese for the kids!  You even think of a good excuse to skip happy hour because you know one drink leads to more. And you solomly swear to pass on ice cream after dinner.

But…what you didn’t foresee was the box of warm donuts waiting in the break room. Or that your gal pals would invite you to join them for lunch at Chipotle. Or Susie’s mom would bring cup cakes to the play date. Or that the Girl Scouts would come marching through the office parading boxes of thin mints in your face. Or that your big project would successfully close and by goodness this calls for a celebration. Or how the bag of Goldfish you packed for Billy mindlessly ended up in your mouth?  And lastly, that your special someone would come home with a pint of coffee heath bar crunch to reward your big sale.

CRAP!!!  So you crawl into bed deflated and vow that tomorrow will be different. Yes, tomorrow you will conquer temptation. However tomorrow comes with a new set of special circumstances and temptation rears its ugly head only to get the best of you time and time again.

 
Girl friend wake up…temptation trumps all meaningful promises because we live in a society where food is in abundance. Food is literally everywhere. Let me rephrase that,  unhealthy food choices are all up in your grill! 

Walk through a store and you’ll see the unhealthy food items displayed front and center.
Turn on the TV and you’ll be assaulted with commercials for fattening fried buttery rich foods.
Open a magazine and you’ll notice glossy pin-ups of sugary processed snacks.
Flip open your lap top to find advertisements and social media shoving the perferbial “hey look at me and where I’m eating” followed by a picture of FOOD!  So you go out and walk down the street to find restaurant signs clamoring for your attention. It’s maddening and if you aren’t prepared to fight back you will lose.

Here is the problem, humans have deeply ingrained positive associations with indulging.

• You treat tempting food as a reward.
• You turn to tempting food for comfort.
• You rely on tempting food as stress relief.
• You allow tempting food to become a habit.

Temptation doesn’t need to have the upper hand anymore. It’s time to put on some armor and forcefully jab and upper cut using your most powerful asset: your brain. Your head. Your noggin! Your mind.  That large mass between your ears is a powerful and amazing tool.  Once it’s made up, it is nearly impossible to change it.

So without further a do…step one.  Make up your mind dear friend. Get your mind right.  Clear out the clutter and hit REBOOT!  Good,  it’s now official…you are the boss of temptation.  Onward we go.

A Matter of Perspective

Imagine for a moment that you’re peacefully floating down a river in an inner tube. The sun is out, the birds are chirping, and you are having a wonderful time. You feel great about the river because it is making you feel good.

Now imagine that you are in a plane flying over the river. Your eye is immediately drawn to an enormous rocky waterfall. You look up the river and just around the bend is a person floating in an inner tube, having a wonderful time, headed straight for the treacherous falls.

Do you think that after your plane ride you’d be happy to get an inner tube and float down the river? Of course you wouldn’t. You’ve seen that the river spells disaster.You now have a negative association (watery death) with the river rather than your initial positive association (relaxing fun).

Overcoming temptation is all about building negative associations in place of existing positive ones. Tomorrow I will provide step 2 to harness the power of your mind to become stronger than any temptation.  You have homework honey. Clear out your mind and while you’re at it, clear out the pantry as well. 

Love, keep it simple and remember it’s all mental!  

Xo Angi