Resisting Temptation.

I had a good day yesterday, a really good day and felt very optimistic that I had devised a way of eating which would work for me. It did...all day long, but I spoiled it, right at the end. I gave into temptation late at night. Curses!
 
So, how do you overcome temptation? How do you resist the charms of a food which smells good, looks good and you know it tastes good? Perhaps we are so fired up by our weight loss that all of a sudden these foods have no power over us? OK - I can understand that, because I think I have weaned myself off quite a few things I used to include in my diet. I can walk away from them and not obsess about being cheated, denied etc.
 
However - is this forever, or just while we are trying to lose weight?
 
My downfall last night was a bacon sandwich. Son came home at 10.30pm, and was ravenous, so he found some bacon in the fridge - it had been in there a while, it wasn't a recent buy - and he started grilling it. Oh the smell! Heavenly! Just so wonderful. I might as well have been Pavlov's dog. I salivated.
 
He shouted to me from the kitchen "Mum, do you want a bacon sandwich?" Now, I should have said no...of course I should. I should have had a big glass of water and gone to bed or distracted myself with something, but...a bacon sandwich was offered, late at night and I ate it. It WAS good. No two ways about it, it was almost divine - it tasted wonderful!  Hah. Day one of the 'plan' and I succumb to a bacon butty. 
 
I have read enough about dieting to know that it's not the end of the world to eat something you perhaps should have avoided. One little slip up isn't going to derail a person determined to shed the blubber. I know that, but I still felt a sense of weakness as I ate it.
 
I suppose the end result - a slimmer, fitter body is what we should keep in mind, and we should be armed with the knowledge that if we do give in to temptation too often, that dream scenario moves further away too. What I am telling myself today is, I can still eat things I enjoy, like bacon sandwiches. I can include them in the eating plan, but really I shouldn't be eating them at 11pm - bed time! I must PLAN to have a bacon sandwich - including the two slices of bread, and adjust the food I eat that day around something I'll enjoy and so banish the guilty feelings.
 
Smells attract us to things. (My favourites are the smell of freshly ground coffee, freshly baked bread, bacon being cooked...creosote and freesias.) It is true that if you start thinking about something and can't get it out of your mind, it suddenly becomes irrisistible. Having that understanding helps us appreciate that we CAN resist it I think. See, another lesson learned last night :)
 

Richard Bach :


Within each of us lies the power of our consent to health and sickness, to riches and poverty, to freedom and to slavery. It is we who control these, and not another.

Son caught me last night. I didn't resist or say no. He delivered a bacon sandwich to me and I accepted it gratefully. Lack of control? Ah well, that is water under the bridge now.

Today I start again, and so far I have had a good morning food wise and I have lifted weights. (I lugged shopping bags from the car to my kitchen...which is upstairs given I have a split level house. My leg muscles are well defined - beneath the fat! ) I have been busy and it's only now that I have stopped to sit at the keyboard that I am thinking "Food. What can I eat?" A lull in my day means food. That is definitely a fat person's thinking, isn't it?

I know what I am eating for lunch - today it is sardines on toast - one slice, with a big salad. I am having salmon glazed with a chili marinade with my man later on (no sauces or potatoes, but - and it will be a small portion - red onion/pepper/mushroom fried rice to go with it) and peas. He's cooking. No wine, just water. So two lots of fish today, but mmmm, I love fish. I have lots of healthy things in the fridge and cupboards if the urge to nibble strikes me later. I don't suppose I'll see a huge weight loss quickly, but already I feel better for having a plan which, apart from the evil bacon sandwich, I am following.

My man's sister and BIL are coming to visit this weekend and I have the trial of the 'all you can eat' Chinese buffet to face on Saturday night. Already I am trying to devise a healthy eating way to attack this. Deep fried anything is out!

Have a good weekend. Face those food enemies and defeat them, says the expert in temptation avoidance, as she hits herself :)