Delay, Don’t Deny

Does this ever happen to you?

You enjoy your dinner and then a nice dessert is offered.  It is your favorite and those around you are partaking. You look at the dessert and feel an overwhelming urge to eat it even though you aren’t hungry.

Well it certainly happened to me hundreds of times during my 25 years as a dieter (ages 15-40.)

Sometimes I would be able to resist, and other times I wouldn’t.  If I ate the dessert, it tasted good, but I didn’t enjoy it as much as I could have because I was already figuring out ways to make up for the indulgence or at least just feeling guilty.  And if I didn’t eat it, I would feel left out and even resentful.

Again, does this sound familiar to you at all?  There is a way out of this kind of struggle.

It involves a perspective change, not willpower. Whew, right?

Instead of thinking:

“Wow, I really want that dessert, I feel like I should treat myself, after all I have had a hard day, and I am just going to eat it and deal with the consequences later.”

Tweak your thinking to sound more like this:

“Wow, I really love that dessert.  It is my favorite.  I am going to give myself the time I need to get hungry again so that I will be able to treat myself to this dessert and enjoy it with the most satisfaction possible.  I am not denying myself, I am simply delaying eating until hunger returns.  (Which is many times a day!!)  I will take a portion with me, or make sure that I cut a piece for myself so there will be some left for me or whatever, and then when I get hungry, I am going to enjoy that dessert completely.  There will be no guilt.  There will only be pleasure. And that is how I will treat myself and treat myself well.

I have to remind you that even though you think that when you stop dieting, you will only crave desserts, that isn’t true.  And as you get stronger and stronger with your thin mentality, you will enjoy your food choices, but you will not be held captive by them.

Even waiting ten minutes the first time you run into this scenario will help you to build your thin mentality.  And as that ten minutes turns into a longer period of time while you wait until hunger returns, you will experience the feelings of satisfaction and control that comes with acknowledging you desire for something wonderful to eat, and eating it with no guilt, no regret.

Your thin mentality will destress your relationship with food and allow you to care for yourself by providing your body with the food it craves.   It is not “wrong” to crave dessert.  It is not evil.  It is not poison.  It is a beautiful part of life.

And again, remember, you will nutritious food too!!  Give your body a chance to show you that it knows what you need.