Dec 27 2009
How to Overcome the Temptation to Overeat - Understanding Temptations Dirty Little Secret
There is temptation to overeat everywhere you turn but you can overcome these desires by learning why you get tempting thoughts and how to short-circuit them before they causes you to act in an unwanted way. It is simple once you understand the dirty little secret behind temptation.
The temptation to overeat actual unravels over 4 stages. Once you understand the stages you will see very clearly how you can disrupt the pattern before it leads you to take a destructive action.
Stage 1. Having the thought. Okay, so temptation starts with having a tempting thought…
“It’s the weekend, I deserve to relax and eat whatever I want.”
“Those cupcakes sure look good.”
There is nothing you can do to stop a tempting thought from popping into your head but don’t worry, just having the thought can’t hurt you, unless you allow the thought to stay in your head which is the next stage.
Stage 2: Feeding the thought. You automatically move into this stage if you allow the thought to linger in your head. This is what I call feeding the thought because you are giving it your energy and it is growing in strength.
“You know, I did work hard this week, it is only right that I sit back, relax and order a pizza.”
“I can’t even remember the last time I had a cupcake and those are my favorite ones.”
Stage 3: Here you begin to tell yourself lies and start to convince yourself that the temptation is not such a bad path to take.
“I could take the night off and have a pizza and some beer and then I can get right back on track tomorrow.”
“I can’t imagine one cupcake could hurt.”
Stage 4: You Act. It is all over by the time you reach stage 4 and now you ACT on your temptation.
“I can’t believe I eat the whole thing!”
The dirty little secret behind temptation is that YOU talk yourself into acting on the temptation. The tempting thought (stage 1) has no power to influence you, it is simply a passing thought but when you feed the thought and move into stage 2 you are sliding down a slippery slope.
To successfully overcome the temptation to overeat you must learn to recognize the tempting thought and then cancel it. This is a literal statement because what I would like you to do is say to yourself, “CANCEL” when the tempting thought comes. By doing this you can interrupt the thought before it is able to gather strength.
If you struggle with the temptation to overeat know that you are in control of it and with a little practice you will learn to short-circuit it and build your confidence in any eating situation.
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