Sitting in a corner office in a towering building somewhere there is a person staring at a clock counting down the minutes until their next meal. They might even get up and pace back and forth, having an inner debate with themselves, on the importance of waiting to eat that meal.
“What if I eat it now, sure I won’t have anything to eat later but I am really hungry now and I won’t be as hungry later.”
“I could eat half of it now and then the other half of it later.”
“I need to eat breakfast later tomorrow, that is what I will do. Yes, yes I will eat breakfast later tomorrow.”
After 3 minutes now of a painful inner pacing (because you sat down already) you grab for the meal with the plan to eat half, but instead you eat it all, and somehow ten minutes later have finished off the rest of your days food, and maybe, even a a few of those cookies that were sitting out. It is safe to say that you had a cravings attack and you, my friend, FAILED.
There are several reasons for this ranging from physical to mental that led up to these cravings in the first place. That is not what we are going to talk about today. No, what we are going to talk about today is how to handle them once they are there. What is going to be discussed today is how to rule the world of Diet Distraction.
Tip #1- RUN AWAY!
If you are in your office, your home, or even your parents house (where they always and forever will offer you dying meat and cheese) do yourself a favor and RUN! Get out of the site of the actual temptation. Go to a bookstore and browse. Go to the park and walk around. If it is only a few minutes you have, go walk up and down the stairs, go to the bathroom (that will kill a hunger craving at work), or just step out for a stretch and a breath of fresh air for a moment. Do what you can to take yourself away from the actual temptation. Take yourself to a place where you think more logical and have to make a conscious decision to “cheat” on your program plan.
Tip #2 – Dance monkey, Dance!
Get up and move around for a moment. Try and set in your mind that every time you are about to buckle then you are going to do “x” amount of push ups, “y” amount of jumping jacks, or “q” amount of jogging in place. If you can’t leave or flee the scene, at least shake up your body and mind with a little movement. At the very least if you fail, you at least burned a few extra calories.
Tip #3 – ” I would like to use the ‘Phone a Friend’ please”
Call up a friend or your honey. No, not to talk about your diet or why you’re fat, people hate that. Call them up to talk about their day, something fun, a new movie you just saw, a new book you just read, or a weird dream you had. I, for one, love to hear how psycho my friends are that are dreaming of satin filled rooms with large nerf bats and the cast of Designing Women.
What? Was I the only one?
Tip # 4 – Frankie Says “Relax”
Stretch, breath, take a bath, have some good ole fashion lovin’, or take yourself on a little shopping trip. Treating yourself nicely and paying yourself back for the good you are doing to your health is a positive distraction of not caving in to the munching down on your plastic food containers.
Tip # 5 – Daydream Nation
If you are already going to be preoccupied in the mind with thoughts, they might as well be good ones! Start dreaming about the new things you are going to try because of the confidence you have been lacking. Start dreaming of the help you can give others with this new knowledge. The clothes you want to buy, the people you want to date, the fun you want to have with your kids, or the adventures you want to take with your new body. There is always SOMETHING we want to be doing that we are not doing. Feed into THAT, not your tummy.
Got anymore I missed? C’mon, distract me from my bowl!
OMG, this is so me RIGHT now! I am wanting to eat ( cause my hunger monster is roaring) but I know if I eat too early, that is all I have here at work so I am waiting until 1:00 or after! But I did go walk around and got 2 20 ounce glasses of water to drink and visited a lady I know who is here in the hospital. All of this I did to get me away from the fridge and the temptation to go ahead and eat! And it was before I read the article! Go me!! It is very reassuring to know that 1) I am not the only half starved chic who does this and 2) there are ways out! I can overcome this wild desire to eat my whole days food at 9:00 am!!
Love these pics and videos!!
Great tips!
I like to just be accountable and think of the consequence in terms of how much cardio I would need to do to burn off my cheat!
A snickers bar would cost me at LEAST 27 mins of cardio!
thinking of it in those terms makes it much less apealing
OMG! That video was brutal. Do I have to admit I laughed a couple times?!
I love it! I love the video–too funny. Great tips, too. One thing that I did, like Ruben, was figure out how many minutes of cardio it would take me to burn off my favorite go-to (BAD) snack foods like Milky Way, chips, etc. Then I stuck little notes in the places where I usually give in to those cravings (the car, my wallet–for when I’m in line and the checkout candy calls my name) and that seemed to help, too.
Awesome video…LOVE the Super Mario flag, i miss that game
Ouch! That video was painful!
I’m laughing hard in Starbucks. People think I’m a freak. …and now the laughing’s not helping my case.
How’d the chick in the bra fail? Is this a test?
This is so applicable for me. It’s not the occasional birthday cakes and morning doughnuts–it’s easy to just wait for all the guys at my office to polish those off. What kills me is that my office actually keeps a cabinet *full* of snacks at all times. I’m great at keeping away from chips and crackers and cookies and granola bars and twizzlers… but I fall for the mixed nuts every time. Agggh! I know it’s not a wretched choice as snacks go, but they are really calorie dense.
Also, I really wish I could get up and dance or doing jumping jacks at work. But I’m pretty sure it would weird out the guys (I work with all guys, which doesn’t make it any easier). Not to mention, jumping jacks are hard to do in heels!
The video was so funny. But what gets me about failing, is that I have gotten to the point where I allow for failure, get my calories in the week’s target, do my exercise, week after week after week; my actions are SUCCESS, but then no results in my body, and I just feel like a FAILURE big time…
4 actions I am taking to overcome that are:
1. weekly photos.
2. weight my food every bite, every splenda and spray
3. more sleep
4. charting my progress calories and weight
Any other suggestions from out there?
thanks, Etana
AWESOME advice, i love your motivational posts!
(what video though? i can’t see anything)
Great information. Sometimes it is hard to say no to food cravings. You provided excellent tips for those struggling with diet. I especially like your tip #2, exercise is a great way to get your mind off of those cravings. You have a great blog by the way.
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