Save me from sugary goodness

That is tough. The only way I've found to avoid them is to bring healthy snacks like almonds to work. When I'm craving that cookie I eat the healthy snack instead.

Willpower is a learned behavior. You teach yourself to resist by resisting.

TimothyFish wrote: »

Willpower is a learned behavior. You teach yourself to resist by resisting.

^This. Either ration yourself to what will fit your calories/macros, or just don't have any at all. I always do the latter. Even if you just say "no" in your own head, I find having made the decision and moved on much easier. Also, the first time not having any is the toughest. It gets easier every time afterwards, and I don't even think about it now.

I log breakfast and lunch (and dinner if I know what it is) as soon as I get to work so I know how many calories I have to work with. Then I decide from there if that brownie, cookie, cake, etc. is worth it after I look up calories. A lot of times just looking at the calories in something will stop me from wanting it, especially if I plug it into my diary and see what it would do to my day.

ahamm002 wrote: »

TimothyFish wrote: »

Willpower is a learned behavior. You teach yourself to resist by resisting.

Better yet teach yourself how to make things easy and not need to "resist." Willpower works great for dieting in the short term, but tends to fail in the long run once motivation wanes.

We all have to resist something somewhere. The box of donuts at the office is one thing, but every time we go to we grocery store we have the choice of buying that double layer chocolate cake, or not. We have the choice of buying the family sized bag of chips or not. I find that I'm better off keeping unhealthy foods around the house all the time. If I don't, I'll end up buying it in a moment of weakness and end up eating the whole thing. I have packages of potato chips and candy that have been sitting around my house for several months. I've had ice cream sit in the freezer so long it freezer burned. It is much easier to resist something that is always available.

Yes, I agree with those saying it takes practice and building the habit. A couple of things that helped me and might or might not work for you: (1) I typically don't snack. Rather than cutting out foods, what worked for me was to eat only at planned meal times (sometimes I build in a snack). I find I tend to eat quite well this way, that snacking almost always led me to eat more than I was actually hungry for (I'm a stress eater), and that when I don't snack I don't tend to notice snack foods that are around, since I typically don't see them as options unless there's something truly special about them. And, (2) I have an alternative available to eat in case the urge hits me at a time my willpower is down. This works if everyone else is standing around eating something and I get tempted or if I'm at the office late and get hungry since I haven't had dinner or have missed lunch or if I happen to decide due to workouts to work in a snack for myself. What I have varies--at first I had lots of low calorie things to munch on since the urge to eat was what I was struggling with (carrots or other raw veggies or even berries). Now I tend to have things that meet the nutritional profile I want in a snack--protein, basically. This also works if dinner is late and I need something satiating. So greek yogurt or a protein bar of some sort and maybe some fruit to go with it.

I also find it helps to have a pretty good idea of how I like to eat and what my goals are. Then it's easy to evaluate if something fits or what I would have to give up to make it fit. Usually I have ice cream after dinner, so a tempting office sweet will require a decision of whether it's worth giving up the ice cream, and possibly some carbs (potatoes or whatever) I'd normally have at dinner. Usually it's not, but when it is, I enjoy it. Before I could do this in my head so easily I'd pre log it to see how it fit.

TimothyFish wrote: »

ahamm002 wrote: »

TimothyFish wrote: »

Willpower is a learned behavior. You teach yourself to resist by resisting.

Better yet teach yourself how to make things easy and not need to "resist." Willpower works great for dieting in the short term, but tends to fail in the long run once motivation wanes.

We all have to resist something somewhere. The box of donuts at the office is one thing, but every time we go to we grocery store we have the choice of buying that double layer chocolate cake, or not. We have the choice of buying the family sized bag of chips or not. I find that I'm better off keeping unhealthy foods around the house all the time. If I don't, I'll end up buying it in a moment of weakness and end up eating the whole thing. I have packages of potato chips and candy that have been sitting around my house for several months. I've had ice cream sit in the freezer so long it freezer burned. It is much easier to resist something that is always available.

Or you could just go to the grocery store when you're not hungry and completely avoid needing willpower.

When I guy a bag of chips I can only resist eating them if they're kept out of sight in a pantry. If I leave chips or cereal in a location where I can see them then they're going to get eaten, and soon.

I just remind myself that I won't have the calories for a beer or one of my homemade treats if I eat someone else's subpar cupcakes or cookies. If they truly look better than whatever treat I had planned and they fit in my calories, I'll have something small or ask a coworker to split a cookie with me.