Resisting food cravings directly is futile and harmful. Successful resistance today means that you’re weaker tomorrow; resist the next day too, and you’ll be even weaker the one after that. Direct resistance is the most common choice for dealing with temptation, but it is a proven loser for three reasons. First, it makes you feel deprived, and very few people can accept deprivation for long if given a choice. Second, it makes you focus on the temptation more: “I mustn’t eat the chocolate” makes you think about the chocolate, increasing the strength of the temptation as you burn through your willpower. Third, it leads to shame if/when you cave, which is what we feel when we want to do “the right thing” but do the wrong thing instead. That last point is why you’re not “earning” the treat, but earning a “shame free” outcome.
This is not a fight to resist your craving. It doesn’t matter if you’re able to resist your craving in any given moment, because the willpower war doesn’t end there. If you win the cookie fight this morning, it may weaken you for the cheeseburger brawl at lunch, or the battle of cheesecake hill tonight. You may resist for an hour and then cave in. You may resist for days or weeks, and then binge on the 37th day. Temptation is a perpetually recurring threat, and this is why strategy is paramount and direct resistance is counterproductive. This strategy consistently increases your chance to beat the temptation without draining your willpower and making you feel deprived. You can replicate this strategy several times a day without issue, because even if you give in to the temptation, the act of going through this process strengthens you.
To summarize the correct perspective: Give yourself full permission to eat the item, without shame, without regret, and without any hint of self-judgment IF you go through the first two mini obstacles in the list I’m about to show you. This turns your motivation to eat the treat into a powerful motivator to do these mini challenges, because you’re granting yourself immunity from shame with only a small, easy condition to meet. On the surface, it looks like you’re giving yourself permission to gain weight and lose: You’re saying I do these easy little things and then I can eat this junk food without feeling bad about it? Are you crazy?!
We are now face-to-face with the counterintuitive side of psychology, because as much as your shame-free pass to eat the cookie is appealing to the part of you that wants to eat allllll the cookies, dropping shame is far more beneficial to the “I want to eat healthy food to lose weight” part of you.
Let’s put it all together now. The incentive (eating item without shame) that makes the motivator (eating item) even more desirable does you the great favor of decreasing your sense of shame (immediately) while motivating you to complete a highly beneficial mini routine that is designed to end with you sometimes no longer wanting the item. You may or may not end up consuming the item, but that’s not the measure of victory. The measure of victory is whether you’ve strengthened yourself or weakened yourself. As for the question I asked earlier: Eating something unhealthy or even a binge session is a one-time event. The shame from eating one unhealthy item or one binge session can spiral and last years. Which one sounds like the bigger threat to you?
This mini routine itself is not merely going to make you more mindful, it’s not merely going to strengthen your willpower and self-control; it’s going to build you up instead of tear you down. It’s not about the individual instance, it’s about who you’re becoming. You can “lose” to your craving and still make significant progress toward changing your behavior.
Do you see how powerful this is? Can you see the difference between this and “fat shaming,” alternating starvation and bingeing cycles, and inflexible dieting? This is the refreshing difference that real strategy brings. It is superior to the smartest doctor in the world telling you exactly what foods to eat for weight loss.
Now, there’s one more factor to consider. Whenever you are tempted and decide to take on this mini challenge, which I recommend you do as frequently as possible (since it’s win-win), make your initial requirement to complete the first two actions. You’ll notice that the list I give you is longer than two actions, and that’s because you can choose to add additional challenges to your requirement. It’s up to you! Just like the core mini habits strategy, it has a low floor and no ceiling.
What if you feel that your challenges weren’t “good enough” to eat the item shame-free? First of all, congratulations, because you’re finally fighting the correct enemy. The food isn’t your problem, self-destructive behavior is, and shame is the heart of self-destructive behavior. I must remind you, however, that shame should never be involved with eating, since food isn’t moral (good or bad); different foods just have varying effects on our bodies. Besides that, you can always do more of any challenge if you feel it’s necessary, or you can move on to the next mini challenge. Whatever you decide, make it your goal to free yourself of shame.
Here are the challenges. I said they were obstacles before because they basically are obstacles in your path from A to B, but a more positive phrase for these is mini challenges.
Temptation Mini Routine
I’ve thought through the ordering, but you may respond better to a different ordering. I put meditation first to slow down the mind, increase mindfulness, delay the action, and calm emotions. This addresses several possible food triggers. It then progresses to substitution to satisfy biological cravings, exercise to activate your “live healthy” motivation, water to address thirst that is often confused for hunger, a small delay, another activity of your choice, a bribe, walking away, and finally, portion negotiation. Here they are in detail, using the example of a cookie craving.
1. Meditate for one minute. This is a good way to clear the mind and slow down. See it as delaying the cookie: ok, I can eat the cookie, but first, I will meditate for a minute. This simple delay (and the impact of meditation) may be enough to make the craving disappear.
Sit down somewhere quiet. If you’re at a party, excuse yourself to a quieter room, outside, or the restroom. Just focus on your breaths for a minute. Don’t fight thoughts and desires, just observe them as if you’re an outsider. Search for “one minute meditation” on YouTube for a guided session. Why is this #1? Meditating will reduce your stress immediately, improve your emotional state, and make you more mindful. It’s a powerful trifecta of defense against temptation. And if you don’t think one minute is enough, try it right now and see for yourself.
Don’t cheat. Try your best to focus on your breaths. If your thoughts drift to the treat or anything else, and they probably will, gently bring them back to your breathing. It’s been said before and it bears repeating that, even if you get distracted a lot while meditating, you’re still benefiting. Just like anything else, you practice meditating to get better at it, not to do it perfectly on the first try.
2. Eat a healthier item. If it’s a drink you’re considering, I’d still recommend eating something healthy if you can. If no healthy food is available, then use #3 as your #2.
3. Do one push-up, one sit-up, dance for a minute, run in place for a minute, or do 15 jumping jacks. It’s best to pick your preferred mini exercise now, rather than decide later. But the idea is to do something active. This can make you more mindful, more motivated to live a healthy lifestyle, and it could even cascade into a full workout. As with all mini habits, be open to doing more.
Just think of the times you engage in snack-eating. It’s probably when you’re relaxed, watching TV, and feeling a little bit lazy. Well, it’s hard to feel lazy right after doing push-ups (or whatever your exercise choice may be)! It puts you in a much better mental state to resist or no longer desire the unhealthy food.
4. Drink a glass of water. We often mistake thirst for hunger. This would fix that!
5. Delay for 10 minutes. This is a great willpower strategy, as it takes much less willpower to delay an action than to resist it completely and doing so weakens your temptation. As Kelly McGonigal states in The Willpower Instinct, “When the brain compares a cookie you h
ave to wait ten minutes for to a longer-term reward, like losing weight, it no longer shows the same lopsided bias toward the sooner reward. It’s the ‘immediate’ in immediate gratification that hijacks your brain and reverses your preferences.”165
6. Distract yourself with a small step into another activity. It’s good to have some alternate path ideas in mind before you’re hit with temptation.
7. Present yourself with an alternate reward/bribe. This could be a TV show instead of nachos. It could be the decision to buy that T-shirt you’ve wanted instead of buying ice-cream. The idea is to choose a non-food reward that doesn’t cause weight gain.
8. Take a walk. Just get out the front door and go. This is pretty fun to do, assuming you live in a safe neighborhood.
9. How was the walk? If you’ve come this far, this is already a MONSTER win! If you still want the item, but are high on these small victories and want one more, agree on a specific portion or agree to eat it another day, leaning toward the balance of shame-free (don’t mindlessly indulge) and happy (never undercut yourself).
That concludes the temptation mini routine list. If you want to switch the order around, be my guest. Some might work better for you than others. Do not wait until you’re tempted to decide which order the mini challenges are in, because making decisions depletes your willpower, which is an important resource to conserve (especially when tempted!).
Feel free to improvise if the situation calls for it. If your standard order is the one listed above, but you see a great alternate reward right away (#7 on the list), you can do that right away. That said, consistently doing the same mini challenges is helpful because, the more you do the same behaviors, the more habitual they will become when you’re tempted. That’s why I recommend having a go-to order of mini challenges that you can change on a case-by-case basis.
Craving Example
It’s 11:34 PM, you’re sitting on your couch, and “OMG I NEED ICE-CREAM NOW.” This is a craving. Relax. Don’t make it into a high-pressure “dieting decision.” Don’t fear caving into your craving. React as calmly as possible.
Realize that shame is the true enemy here, and that you can agree to two mini challenges to eat ice-cream without any shame. In the past, you’d let your desire for complete control translate into rigid rules and subsequent rebellion. Now, you’re gently moving the behavior from all-or-nothing abstinence or bingeing into something that you calmly decide on.
Meditate for a minute
Eat a healthy alternative (or skip to #3 if unavailable)
Do one push-up (or alternate exercise)
Choose to continue with more challenges or go ahead and eat as much of it as you want. It’s not forbidden, and nobody is going to stop you. As you eat it, however, don’t turn your brain off. Be fully present, enjoy it, and think about how much of it you really want to eat, all things (including weight gain) considered.
The Law of Marginal Utility states that we’ll enjoy our first slice of pizza more than our fifth slice. This is true for everything, which is why mindfulness is so important while eating. We’ve all likely eaten unhealthy food without even enjoying it, simply because we weren’t being mindful. Whatever you eat, eat it mindfully.
When You Eat it, Make it Good
There will be times when you do you mini challenges (or not) and still consume the fried onion rings, the soda, or the fast food. It’s fine. You’re only human. When that time comes, do NOT try to cheat and trick your body with a “diet” treat.
Never, ever consume diet food. Not only are diet foods generally weight-gaining—because weight gain is a metabolic issue and they’re worse for your metabolism than real sugar—but consuming “diet food” is one of the most psychologically backward things you can do if you’re trying to lose weight.
It’s the classic picture of the person bingeing on baked chips without worry. It’s the person drinking diet soda after diet soda because, why not? They don’t contain calories! It’s the person guzzling down skim milk as if cows are going extinct. A “diet” product makes you believe that you’re not going to gain weight by consuming it, or that you’ll gain less weight than the “non-diet version.” This isn’t a reduction of shame, it’s a reduction of truth! This belief is often wrong as it stands, but it becomes much worse when you feel compelled to consume beyond what you typically would consume because “it’s diet.”
When you consume unhealthy food, make sure it’s full of real fat and real sugar. First, this food will actually be enjoyable and satisfying biologically, because your body can process these substances. Second, you’ll be more conscious about your decision. It’s the same reason why people recommend paying with cash instead of a credit card—when you hand over the cash, you feel the pain of losing it more than swiping a piece of plastic for hundreds of dollars. In the same way, when you chomp into that triple chocolate fudge sundae, you will feel the gain! Not shame, because you took care of that, but gain. It’s good to associate these foods with weight gain, because that’s the truth, even when they’re pumped full of non-food chemicals and labeled “low-calorie” or “diet.”
This isn’t to make you feel bad about eating unhealthy food; it’s to make you aware that there are no shortcuts to losing weight if you eat cake all day. Real food repairs your metabolic system by reducing inflammation, triggering proper reward and satiety responses, and giving the body time to heal itself from previous consumption of Frankenfoods.
Temptation Part 2: Stop Fighting Yourself
Even with the excellent strategies in this book, you will sabotage yourself if you approach your eating and movement habits with thoughts as innocent-sounding as, “I have to fight to eat well and do the best thing for my body.” When you take a fighting stance against your current eating and movement habits, you’re declaring war against your subconscious. Bad idea! Some people have struggled with the original Mini Habits system because they don’t actually shed their old way of thinking.
Mini habits and the optional strategies in this book are strategically casual. A mini habit’s strength is that it does NOT trigger any of these internal wars. Its strength is that it does NOT pose a threat to your current way of life. Like a taxi, it picks you up where you are without judgment and takes you someplace new.
The following is critical to understand, so reread it if necessary. If you ever feel resistance to doing a mini habit or going through the series of mini challenges when tempted, it’s because YOU are resisting “the wrong way.” It’s because you are trying too hard to do “the right thing.”
When you’re tempted by something, your first instinct should not be, “Oh no, here’s the craving. What can I do to stop this?” Even if your approach after that point is smart, your initial attitude of direct resistance to the temptation has already put you at a significant disadvantage.
I’m going to write this three times because it’s that important.
The more you resist, the more you will feel resistance.
The more you resist, the more you will feel resistance.
The more you resist, the more you will feel resistance!
The way this works is that your resistance to “doing the wrong thing” riles up your subconscious (because it wants to do the wrong thing), and then you’ll feel resistance to doing something as simple as one push-up or drinking a glass of water. On their own, these behaviors are laughably easy, but when you posture them as roadblocks to “the fun stuff,” they’re only slightly better than the massive goals people fail with on a regular basis.
The myth of the “quick fix” is one of the biggest hurdles to success with mini habits. Change your behavior through freedom, acceptance of where you are right now, and strategic and consistent movement toward better behaviors. It might be easiest to convey the right perspective in thoughts.
Good: “Those cookies look delicious and I want one. I know they’re weight-gaining, so I’ll go through two mini challenges and take it from there.”
Bad: “Those cookies look del
icious and I want one. Ugh. But I can’t have one now! I shouldn’t! I really want to lose this weight, but they look so good! I have to do something now! What strategies could I try to prevent myself from eating this?”
See how the first response is calm, collected, casual, and easy-going? See how the second response is frantic, defensive, and out of control? The first response works well because it doesn’t create a win-lose scenario and it doesn’t put any pressure on you to change yourself instantly. It allows you to breathe.
Also bad: “I’m going to do this mini challenge in order to defeat this craving.”
The “end goal” of a mini habit is to do the mini habit. Nothing else. You can’t expect a mini habit to save you from temptation, to turn into a full workout, or to make you love green beans on any given day. You can expect a mini habit to improve any and all of those areas over time. Does that make sense? If you ever place an in-the-moment expectation on a mini habit, you are no longer aiming for a mini habit, but for whatever your expectation is. The way to avoid this is to stop obsessing over individual events and results, and instead focus on being consistent with these small behaviors. In weight loss, every battle counts, but no single battle wins the war. Don’t fear losing a battle; fear losing the war because you let a battle get the best of your emotions. (This goes back to the question “Is it worse to eat a cookie or to feel shame for eating a cookie?”)
Mini Habits for Weight Loss: Stop Dieting. Form New Habits. Change Your Lifestyle Without Suffering. Page 23