I've been thinking about resisting the past few days. Resisting unplanned food, I mean.

The ancient/lizard brain got me thinking about strengthening my ability to resist by practice and more paractice. (I am a believer in learning by doing.)

I wonder what other are thinking and practicing around resisting unplanned food. (Assuming, of course, you have at least a vague plan.)

Do you believe you can get better at resisting with practice?

Are you waiting to want to resist the chocolate bar?

Do you have some tried and true methods?

Are you feeling like you can't resist the frozen pizza- like you don't have the power to resist XXXX food?

I've made up some "rules" about unplanned food that are working pretty well to give me inside-my-head reasons to NOT eat.

-If I don't know about it ahead of time, I don't eat it. (Like...coworker randomly brings in cookies. I don't eat them. But...coworker says, "Tomorrow I'm bringing in cookies." Then I might plan for one.)

-If other people have had their hands in it, I don't eat it. (Tupperware containers, donut boxes, etc.)

-If the person offering it can't tell me what's in it, I don't eat it. ("Wow, that smells...interesting. What's in it?" "Ummm..I saw my wife buy bananas...so maybe...bananas?")

-If it's not unusual, there's no NEED to eat it. ("Hey, I brought donuts!" Head says, "If I wanted a donut, I'd have stopped at that store to get one.")

I basically get control-freaky with my food. Would I want a small child to eat it? Then there's no reason for me to eat it.

I'm doing pretty well, at least in the pressure-cooker that is work. Home has been more difficult--I'm eating to FULL again instead of satisfied, and was up several hours last night with heartburn . Lesson learned. Tonight, I ate all the grilled corn, all the fresh green beans, and 3 oz of the pork chop; the rest got cut up for a lunch salad for the boyfriend next week.

I do think resisting gets easier. Saying, "No thank you" is nearly second nature. I always compliment the way the food looks or smells (if I can...) and then say, "But no, thank you." And, um, it works, 90% of the time. Amazing.

It's ice cream time in my life, I have been craving ice cream for weeks. I have found two ways to not give in, first, I remain true to my eating plan and only have a small scoop when I have points left for it. I have found small scoops in the kitchen store that measure about 2 ounces, and they are fine for me. Second, it's not in the house, and often I crave it at 10:30 pm, I won't get out at that hour and make the trip to the ice cream shop, so a frozen banana or frozen yogurt will do me fine. It's a matter of mind over what really matters to me. It's not easy, but it matters to me to be healthy and slimmer.

I still struggle with unplanned food. But, I am getting WAY better at eating much less of that unplanned food than before. For example, I did not plan to have breakfast today at IHOP. But, dd wanted to go so we ended up there. I ordered scrambled eggs that came with hash browns and i ordered the banana caramel stuffed french toast. I can feel you cringing as you read that!!!

But, I ate a couple bites of the French toast(I love stuffed french toast), ate about 1/2 the scrambled eggs and about 1/4 of the hash browns.
I brought more than 1/2 that whole breakfast home. And even though what I ate was not very healthy, I am pretty proud of myself for only eating small portions of each and stopping before I was full.

I think for me resisting food completely makes me want it even more. So, I do try to plan treats and my favorite foods into my days so that I'm not walking past the dish of dark chocolate 25 times a minute deciding, should I or shouldn't I? I know I can't have chocolate or ice cream every day. And, I have gotten better at resisting. There is a pint of unopened chocolate/peanut butter Haagen Daaz(sp?) in my freezer. It has been there for about 2 weeks. There are also Edy's frozen coconut bars and orange cream bars in the freezer. I've had two coconut bars in the last 4 days. I can guarantee that a few years ago, whether I was hungry or not, that ice cream and those frozen bars would have been gone in a few days. I'd say that is restraint. I don't even think about them being there. I open the freezer and say "oh, i forgot those were there" and close the door. I don't stand there and fight with myself about whether or not to eat them.

Jill

my problem was rigidity. being so planful and rigid (ok, everybody squeeze their sphincter really tight---that was ME!). it made for those "treat" days when i went hog wild and blew my healthy habits.

so now, if i feel i cannot resist, i go for it. in a reasonable fashion. in the past i would never eat cake on a weekday. but last week, i had 2 bites of a piece of cake on a tuesday. i know that sounds ridiculous but for me, it was bigtime undoing bad patterns.

if i am really struggling, the Beck type of thinking gets me back on track. i want chocolate. i reach for a piece of laughing cow cheese, and a sf yogurt instead. they were not on my eating plan that day but it was a better choice than a chocolate bar, so for me, that was a pat on the back.

once i stop labelling foods as forbidden, the old temptations left. now, i am so particular. i get a craving for chinese dumplings because i really do want them. not because i was on some rigid plan where they were excluded, and i am having one of my hogwild moments.

so this is how i resist temptations. i had to re-think them in my big hard head.