From skwigg's journal:
Here is a bit of Georgie wisdom I want to save and talk about. That's my bold...
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The length and emotional amplitude of your internal debate over eating a treat is proportional to the urgency and desire for massive quantities you'll feel.
In other words, your internal milieu is what drives compulsion or craving. It's not a random thing like a hailstorm that just *happens to you* (and never happens to some others).
In OTHER other words, you can control how you think and stop suffering massive compulsions to eat ALL the ice cream. Stop giving yourself hailstorms and losing weight is easier.
The experience can be "I ate it, I enjoyed it, I moved on." instead of "Should I or shouldn't I? But I want it and I'll be miserable without it, no I can't have it, or maybe a piece, and I'll be really good tomorrow... (carried on for minutes to hours)..." which usually ends up in eating a ton.
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Good stuff, right? Don't give yourself hailstorms.
Learning to decide and not debate has been a gradual process for me. It's not like the debates just stopped all of a sudden. They started becoming shorter and less dramatic. Now, I'm a very decisive eater. Do I want it? Yes, no, eat it, or don't. That's the whole thought process. It's quick and boring. I don't bargain or guilt trip or amp it up with emotions and storytelling. I don't let a food decision haunt me for hours. That's seems absurd now, even though it was my life for a few decades!
Georgie also mentioned that you can slash your food chatter dramatically if you're in the habit of eating meals and not snacking. That way you only make food decisions at meal times, not all day long. For me, it helps tremendously to have many favorite go-to meals that I repeat. I'm not starting from scratch with every meal trying to decide what to have and how much. Same thing with eating my favorite treats regularly. Knowing that I'm going to be cracking open a pint of premium ice cream or enjoying my M&Ms soon keeps me from randomly obsessing over (and overeating) every marginal sweet treat I come into contact with. I'll happily wait for my favorites.
I structure my eating just enough that I don't have to think about food. The less I think about what I'm going to eat, the better. Even if I do eat something outrageous, unplanned, and get way too full, I pat my belly, and move on. I don't spend hours or days telling myself crazy stories and debating future food choices.
This "decide don't debate" and "own your choices" stuff sounds like a small detail, but I'm telling you it's HUGE. If you're always debating food choices, using willpower, and getting emotional over something you've eaten (or not eaten), it's the heart of the problem.