Do You Have Self Control?

One thing that goes a long way to helping you with your eating plans is self control. Do you find yourself sneaking a chocolate biscuit after dinner and then thinking ‘that was good’ and going back for another and then before you know it you’ve knocked off the whole packet? It is a common occurrence in most households, I suspect, particularly if competition is high for the so called ‘yummy’ food in the cupboards.

The problem with this scenario is that most of us have never learnt the art of self control when it comes to ‘treat’ style foods so whenever we have access to them we over do it. If though, we are to learn how to ultimately control our food intake and our weight for life, we also need to learn to self regulate ourselves even as adults.

So how do we do this? Below I have outlined a number of points that may assist you in learning how to implement self control when it comes to eating ‘treats’ ;

• The best practice of course is not to have treats in the cupboards or fridge in the first place however this is sometimes easier said than done.


• Allocate portions that will spread out the eating of the treat over the whole week rather than demolishing it in one sitting – an example of this would be if you had a small block of dark chocolate in the fridge that had say 14 pieces. Break it up into those 14 pieces and allow yourself 1 or 2 pieces per night as a maximum.


• Keep your treat foods in a container that is not readily in sight so that when you go to the fridge or cupboard the treats are not the first thing you see.


• Have ready made healthy alternatives such as fruit or vegetables in plain sight so you can easily grab an apple rather than a packet of chips.


• When you feel like something sweet, drink two large glasses of water, brush your teeth or chew some sugar free gum instead.
  

Like anything in life total avoidance is usually not the answer and will often lead to ‘binge’ eating if you have deprived yourself of something totally for a long period of time. Self management is what we ultimately need to master if we are to be in control of our eating and in turn we will be in control of our weight.