It’s hard to resist ordering dessert when you’re at a restaurant with your girlfriends. It’s hard not to have another cocktail when you’re celebrating your brother’s birthday. How often we cannot resist and break down, quit the diet, and then blame ourselves … What to do? How to resist temptation?
Instead of waiting for the temptation to “raise its head”, turn around and grab you with its tentacles, and then heroically fight it, try to plan how you will begin to manage the temptations. This will work out much more efficiently.
Try using the self-control strategies suggested by psychologists at the University of Wyoming. A study published in 2019 showed that if you apply the 4 strategies listed below in advance, it will be easier to avoid “culinary temptations”.
1. Avoid temptation
If possible, avoid situations in which you might be tempted. For example, if you love fast food, stay away from fast food restaurants. Don’t even walk past. And stay away from bakeries and bakeries.
2. Change the situation in your favor
If you can’t completely avoid a tempting situation, change it to your advantage. For example, if you’re at a club or bar, or you’re invited to a party, stay as far away from the bar or buffet as possible. Find guests who also don’t drink or are on a diet. Better go and dance in good company!
3. Switch attention
Take your mind off the temptation for something else. For example, if you’re trying not to overeat or overeat at a party, engage in an interesting conversation with the guests. And always keep a glass of water in your hands. After all, it is water that will help to refrain from an extra sandwich or a glass of champagne. As the saying goes, “if you want to eat, drink water.”
4. Change the angle of view
Otherwise, look at tasty, but such harmful products, and they will quickly lose their appeal. Dreaming of a double burger? Imagine that you are going to eat minced animal muscle and a healthy piece of fat that clogs arteries and blood vessels. Like? This exercise can be done with anything. Just as we turn the ugly into the funny, so can the tasty be turned into the ugly.
Of course, you can exert willpower, pull yourself together, step on the throat of your own song. But why make fun of yourself like that? After all, you can think in advance how to protect yourself from temptations: it is much easier to deal with bad habits. Which in turn will help you change your lifestyle and achieve your desired goal once and for all.