Put yourself on autopilot
It can be easier to put yourself on autopilot instead of wasting time with internal dialogs about food when you’re looking to improve your diet. This is an extract of the book “Willpower” by Roy F. Baumeister & John Tierney:“You can try a strategy that psychologists call an “implementation intention”, which is a way to reduce the amount of time and effort you spend controlling your thoughts: Make specific plans for automatic behaviors in certain situations, like what to do when you’re tempted by fattening food at a party.
An implementation intention takes the form of the if-then: If x happens, I will do y. The more you use this technique to transfer control of your behavior to automatic processes, the less effort you will expend. So before you get tempted by the food at a party, you can prepare yourself with a plan like: if they serve chips, I will refuse them all. It’s a simple but surprisingly effective way to gain self-control. By making the decision to pass up the chips an automatic process, you can do it fairly effortlessly even late in the day, when your supply of willpower is low.”
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[image: a fat girl taking a mirror picture in her bedroom text: “I’m afraid to come out as a lesbian because I’m fat. All the lesbians I know are thin and will only date other thin girls. I’m afraid I’ll always be alone.”]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m2zsijP0wU1qcpj7wo1_1280.png)
