Rules Can Be Useful To Keep you On Track

Having rules like ” I don’t eat anything after 8pm” or “I never drink alcohol midweek” or ” I eat unprocessed food 99% of the time” or “I eat very healthily during the week” or “I never snack between meals”

Developing ones like ” I’m cutting down on my sugar intake” can help make us aware that when the cakes are offered at work you have made a decision that you are cutting down on sugary foods.

It gives you that small moment of time to think your actions through before going ahead or not.

Using the strategy from lean for life of asking “If I eat this how will I feel later” can help bring you to your senses to make the decision that is in alignment with you at that present moment.

It could well be that you notice the cake is a very good quality and you choose to eat it deliberately and consciously and thoroughly enjoy it.

Later when its dinnertime, perhaps you are not ready to eat yet so you wait a while longer before eating or have something lighter to compensate for the heavier food.

Rules Cutting Out Food Groups

Even rules like “I don’t eat unprocessed carbs” or “I don’t eat dairy” can be useful as making those rules to stick to a decision can knock out a whole load of foods which no longer causes a battle in mind. You just don’t eat those foods anymore.

Obviously if there is a nutrient within those foods you need to get elsewhere, you make sure you have an alternative. The Dairy calcium myth has had millions spent by the dairy industry to convince us we need milk for calcium. We don’t, we can get ours from where the cow did. From greens in our diet. Broccoli is a good source.

Having rules can stop you from making spur of the moment decisions when a food cue gets inside your head, they provide structure and boundaries to keep you focused on what is really most important to you long term.

Rules And Plans

Having a plan can connect specify actions to specify responses according to Columbia University’s Department of Psychology Walter Mischel. Preparing for challenging situations is more effective than not.

He says ” If I encounter this cue, then I regulate my response to it in this way”

Think about identifying “if’s” and then adding “then” for developing better plans.

“If I eat this then I will be angry at myself afterwards, I like to have plan and stick to it”