Situational Strategies: A List of Micro-Challenges for Facing Temptation

Chapter 9

Contextual strategies

Rules may be broken, but strategies will endure.

Everyone has their own plans, until someone punches them in the face.

------American boxing champion Mike Tyson

Strategy Introduction

Dieters strictly adhere to rules about what they can and cannot eat, but they inevitably encounter various situations in real life, and these situations occur frequently. Rules can be broken, but strategies remain.

The strategies described below are not rules that must be followed, but rather attitudes and behaviors that you can choose to adopt at any time, depending on the situation and circumstances. Whether to use a strategy and when to use it is entirely up to you, and all of these strategies can guide you to make the right decisions. Because you are not required to use these strategies, you won't feel like you've "messed up" even if you accidentally eat an ice cream.

The micro-habit plan we discussed in previous chapters is the core part, the "main course." The strategies I'll introduce next are "side dishes" that I highly recommend but can choose to follow. This concept reflects the essence of healthy living: what guides a healthy life is first habits, followed by our attitudes and the non-habitual choices we make every day.

Application is more important than theory. Therefore, I have listed many challenging real-world scenarios you may encounter below, each accompanied by strategies to help you make more correct choices.

Strategies for dealing with temptation: a list of micro-challenges

You have a plan, great, and then you suddenly have a huge craving for seven cookies... Oh no! What should you do? The worst thing you can do is simply resist the craving and let yourself feel unsatisfied.

Desire is a rare opportunity for progress. Do you know why? Because desire is backed by powerful motivation, and we can harness that motivation. Countless people seek motivation to achieve their goals. We currently possess motivation, and it's quite strong, but this motivation is like eating cookies-it's not aligned with our goals. So, how can we make this motivation work for us?

The method I'm about to tell you has benefited me immensely. I have a less-than-honorable habit: video game addiction. Many times, I've played for double-digit hours straight (I've told you I'm lazy). When I really want to play, I often think back to past gaming experiences and tell myself, "I shouldn't play games," or "I shouldn't play too many games." (Doesn't that sound like when you want to eat?) This thought, driven by shame, makes us feel down, thus making things worse.

I've found a better strategy than shame. Let's say my main goal is to play less video games and do more productive things. To achieve this, when faced with temptation, I create a barrier between myself and gaming by doing something small, stress-free, and beneficial. The condition for doing this is that I can overcome the shame of playing games. Many times, this strategy has allowed me to do productive things for hours without playing games for a single minute. Other times, I did some productive work, played games for a while, and ended up satisfied with both. Either way, I won. Now, let's talk about how this strategy can help you when faced with the temptation of unhealthy food. Besides the micro-habit strategies mentioned earlier, this one is probably the most ingenious in the book.

How to become an opportunist rather than a victim

What is a typical craving like? They resist cravings until they succumb to them. They struggle, exhaust themselves, fail, and then eat what they want, as if they had become victims of their cravings. Then they feel bad for failing to fight their cravings. What if these "victims" could not only protect themselves from cravings but also take the initiative? We would completely change the game and never look at cravings the same way again.

First, ask yourself a profound question: Which is more detrimental to your long-term weight loss-eating a bag of unhealthy snacks or feeling ashamed for eating them? Which will gradually lead to weight gain? Keep this question in mind for now, and let's talk about desires.

Imagine desire as a magnet, drawing you step by step towards it. You can resist for a while, but as soon as you let your guard down, you'll be swept away. Our strategy is to create small obstacles between you and your desire, thereby harnessing it. We're not trying to eliminate desire. But before introducing these small obstacles, we must first have the right attitude.

By completing these mini-challenges, you're actually getting closer to the cookies (or anything else). However, it's important to understand that the cookies aren't something you "win." You're not doing these challenges to "buy" the right to eat unhealthy foods. The idea of ​​"buying" unhealthy foods with healthy behavior represents flawed notions like "they cancel each other out," "they're equal," or "doing a good deed makes up for some sin." You're not buying cookies; you're buying the right to "get rid of shame." Completing the mini-challenges allows you to reconcile with yourself and no longer feel ashamed to eat unhealthy foods. (If you still feel ashamed, you should be ashamed of yourself! Just kidding, there's no good in doing so. You should understand now. If you feel ashamed, remind yourself that you've reconciled with yourself.) After completing this obstacle challenge, allow yourself to eat what you want without shame.

You might be thinking, "Why bother with these mini-challenges when I can just eat what I want?" I appreciate your thinking; questioning everything is a good quality. This strategy is particularly effective, and you'll often gladly choose mini-challenges. Why? Because mini-challenges are different from "eating cookies directly." Completing a mini-challenges doesn't bring any shame, and you still get to eat what you want. For the same reason, I like to work before playing games-regardless of whether I play games afterward. Deciding to do something positive makes me feel good, and playing games afterwards doesn't make me feel bad either.

Directly resisting food cravings is futile and leaves lasting consequences. Successfully resisting cravings today means you'll be less resolute tomorrow, and successfully resisting them tomorrow means you'll be more easily swayed the day after. Direct resistance is the most common choice we make when faced with temptation, but three reasons make it doomed to fail. First, directly resisting cravings leaves you feeling extremely unsatisfied; few people can endure this disappointment for long given other options. Second, direct resistance makes you more focused on the temptation; "I absolutely cannot eat chocolate" only keeps you thinking about it, weakening your willpower while amplifying the temptation. Third, when you succumb to temptation, you feel ashamed. This feeling arises when we try to do the "right thing" but end up doing the wrong thing. This third reason also explains why what you "win" isn't the food you want, but rather a "passport to rid yourself of shame."

What we need to do is not fight against cravings, but resist them. Whether you can resist cravings at any given time is irrelevant, because the battle of willpower never ends. Even if you win the cookie battle in the morning, you might become less resolute during the cheeseburger battle at noon, or less capable during the cheesecake battle at night. You might resist for an hour, then surrender. You might resist for days or weeks, then start binge eating on day 37. Temptation is a constant threat, so strategy is crucial; direct resistance will only backfire. The micro-challenge strategy continuously increases your chances of overcoming temptation without depleting your willpower or leaving you feeling immensely disappointed. You can use this strategy many times a day without any problem, because even if you surrender to temptation, the experience of the process will make you stronger.

To summarize the right attitude: Completely allow yourself to eat what you want, without shame, regret, or self-blame, provided you can complete the first two challenges I've listed. This will transform your motivation to eat into a powerful drive to complete these small challenges, because by completing these small, simple tasks, you'll ensure you overcome any feelings of shame. On the surface, this might seem like allowing yourself to gain weight or fail: You mean, by doing these simple things, I can eat junk food with a clear conscience? Are you crazy?!

Now, we've encountered a psychological fact that differs from what we imagined. While eating cookies without shame might make you crave them all, overcoming shame has far greater benefits for healthy eating and weight loss.

Let's summarize. The incentive mechanism that strengthens a motivation (eating what you want) – eating what you want without shame – can greatly help you reduce shame (immediately), while simultaneously motivating you to complete beneficial micro-challenges, ultimately making you sometimes not want to eat unhealthy things at all. You may or may not end up eating them, but that's not the measure of victory. The measure of victory is whether you become more determined or more easily swayed. As for my earlier question – eating unhealthy things, even eating large amounts at once – that's only temporary, while the resulting shame can fester and last for years. Which do you think poses a greater threat?