Confession: I love baked goods.
Worse: I love SWEET baked goods!
Pies, cakes, donuts, cookies, you name it, I dig it.
So much so, that I can’t have them around me. It would be torturous to have to flex that much self-control on a daily basis, so we generally don’t have foods like that in the house.
Once in a while is fine, but not on a regular basis.
A few weeks ago, on a Tuesday, was one of those “once in a while” days as my wife baked a delicious peach pie.
I could hardly wait for that darn thing to come out of the oven.
I stood over it as it cooled. Smelling, drooling, picking at the crust.
(And yes, I’m still a health coach! A health coach who is human and very much knows it.)
I may have been actually drooling as I cut myself a nice large slice…
Burning my mouth on the first bite because I could hardly wait to get it in me.
It melted in my mouth. I was in heaven… for a minute… which is about as long as it took me to woof down that slice.
I could have kept eating, easily, but stopped.
Later that evening, the damn thing was still sitting on the counter – that cannot be.
I covered it and put it into the (cold) oven to get it out of sight.
If you know me, you likely know that I’m a huge proponent of “out of sight, out of mind”. Hiding any tempting foods from yourself so that you don’t have to walk past them and further tempt yourself.
Even so, as I closed the oven door, I told myself “Out of sight, out of mind doesn’t work… not in this case!
I know it’s there and guarantee I’ll be tearing into that thing for breakfast, first thing when I come down tomorrow!”
Well guess what?
Not only did I not have peach pie for breakfast the next day, I COMPLETELY FORGOT ABOUT IT!
It wasn’t until Wednesday of the next week – a full 8 days later, when I opened the oven to cook something for dinner – that I found the moldy pie!
What do you think would have happened if I left that pie on the counter or put it in the refrigerator that I open about 20 times per day?
I can tell you what would have happened – it would have been entirely eaten (by me) the next day!
Most of us think that we need heroic amounts of willpower to eat healthy.
The reality is that we just need to design our environment to support our goals. That’s a whole blog post for another time…
For now, try two things:
- Don’t bring tempting food or drink into your house at all, and
- If #1 is not realistic because you live with other people or your wife is trying to chub you up, get it out of sight.
The less you have to see that tempting thing, the less it can tempt you! Then you don’t need willpower, you just need to let your day run its course.
-Jeff