Create a special notebook or journal section for recording your favorite foods.
When a food thought crosses your mind, remind yourself that you don’t have to act on it.
Instead, write down the name or even a description of the food, and then anticipate the pleasure of eating it sometime in the future.
Today’s assignment (my answers are in blue)
1. Whenever you think about a particular food you want, write it down in your notebook. Practice this today by writing a couple of your favorite food in the space below.
Oatmeal-chocolate chip cookies from Great Harvest Bakery
Dessert such as carrot cake or chocolate mousse
Ice cream – butter brickle, chocolate mint
2. Plan that you’ll eat the food at another time. With the foods you listed above, describe the amount you’ll have and how often you’ll fit it into your program.
Cookies – for now, none. Eventually once a month, ½ large cookie
Dessert – skip it for now. Later, plan it in once a month
Ice cream – once every two weeks, have low-cal gelato instead of regular ice cream
3. Stretch the times farther apart for eating each of these foods. You may discover that after a while, certain foods don’t seem as important to you as they once did. Add notes below on what you learn from using your magic notebook.
This exercise reminds me that I don’t HAVE to eat certain foods just because I think about them. Writing them down in my notebook seems to decrease their power. I know that I get to have them eventually, so for now, I can let them go.
Excerpted from Day 5 in the book, 100 Days of Weight Loss