Carolyn Hansen: How to manage cravings and temptations

Unless you hide yourself in a room and don’t leave the house until you’ve reached your goals, the world of temptation is right there Photo / 123rf

OPINION

No matter how careful you are when first setting out on your journey of improved healthy eating, at some point along this journey you will run head-on into a serious food temptation or craving.

It doesn’t matter that you have cleaned your kitchen cupboards and refrigerator of any tempting food items that would derail you from sticking to your diet plan. Nor does it matter that you have been extra careful to stay away from the processed food aisles in the grocery store and are now concentrating on the perimeters of the store where most of the fresh foods are found.

Truth is, unless you hide yourself in a room and don’t leave the house until you’ve reached your goals, the world of temptation is no further away than your next “meal out”. And in reality, once you have reached your goals, if you have not already dealt with your cravings and temptations you will surely have to then, because you can’t make the world go away. You must learn to live in the world with your new lifestyle.

What do you do when:

• Your co-worker brings in a box of your favorite donuts … the very ones you have been so careful to keep out of your house and your reach. You’ve even begun to take a different way home to avoid the temptation of actually seeing that donut business but now it’s staring right at you within arm’s reach.

• You are dining out with a friend and a basket of yummy warm bread arrives on the table. Bread has always been your weakness … especially warm bread.

• It’s another birthday you are attending and that buttercream icing is calling out to you.

How do you handle temptations like these that seem to grab on and keep you in their grip? How do you handle those programmed “cravings” that you’ve given in to all these years? If you are not prepared with a defence mechanism in place, failure is given the upper hand.

The key is flexing your willpower. The more you use it the stronger it gets - just like your muscles. If you ignore it and don’t exercise it, it becomes weak. Research has shown you can indeed strengthen your “willpower” muscle and fine-tune your self-control just like you do with your muscles.

Every time we use our “will power” we strengthen it so every temptation or craving after that gets easier.

There are exercises you can use ahead of time to strengthen your willpower … such as flexing your visionary power and using your imagination to create positive images of your desired goals. When the weak “moment” comes and you need that image, it readily appears in your mind.

For example what does it feel like to look in the mirror and “see” such a fit and healthy body? Get into those emotions and feelings so when you need them you will be able to call on them.

For some people, the act of writing down what emotions and images they are feeling and seeing when they experience weak moments really helps to shift their programming and to rewrite their story from weak to strong.

The most important thing to remember when you do fall off your healthy eating goals (notice I said when and not if - you will fall at some point), is to pick yourself back up and get going again … minus any negative thoughts or feelings about what happened. No guilt allowed, nor defeatist programming, it only brings on more of the same.

Don’t create more pressure on yourself by thinking you will be perfect. You won’t. It’s not human nature to be perfect so we must prepare for those times when we do experience that “weaker moment”.

You do have the tools, but you have to take action and use them.

- Carolyn Hansen is co-owner of Anytime Fitness