Joey Dussel

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Surviving the Sweets Season

Surviving the Sweet Season 🎂🍰🍪🍩🍭🧁🍦🍫🍬🍡🍧🍮 🎄🎁  (did you even know there were so many emojis for SUGAR?? haha)

This is so tough! Maybe these suggestions can help. 👇🏼

#1 drink a ton of water so that you feel more full and have less room for those treats and sweets. 

#2 try to satisfy your appetite with more nutritious and filling foods, especially if you can find a lot of vegetables. 

#3 consider trying to give away as much of that stuff as you can. People love getting gifts and if you can get the candy and treats and sweets out of the house that will really benefit you. Go to a friend's house with 2 dozen cookies or a nice package of sweets. 

#4 maybe you can find a way to remove yourself from the situation as much as possible -- I know that's probably the toughest of all since you may not want to leave your family. 

Try to keep the stuff out of sight as much as you can. Simply putting some aluminum foil over the exposed treats might be a simple solution that helps a lot. Volunteer to help clean things up and put some of these treats in containers or out of sight. 

One thing I do when trying to make sure I don't eat foods that are out of my plan is to ensure that I only select the absolute highest quality version of any given dessert.

For example, don't have a cheap cookie from the local grocery store. Instead have the best mom-created home-baked fresh from the oven warm cookie. Sidebar: When I was doing wrestling, I would tell myself that I would have one specific portion of a certain dessert or other treat food, and that was IT — no more or others. By actually planning on having some, you take away a little bit of the power of the desert and you are not trying to go 100% without it. 

Also, you do get a little bit of anticipation value where you are looking forward to your specific maximally-desirable dessert.

Usually with food, it is pretty easy to suddenly have an intense desire for a given item once we see it. Whenever this happens to me personally, I remind myself that those thoughts of desire will go out of your mind just as quickly as they went into your mind. The human relationship with food is pretty unusual in that way. This is mostly due to the fact that food is so sensory-stimulating for us (smell + taste + texture). But if you weren't thinking about donuts or cookies or whatever before coming into the room, you will probably be able to forget about them just as fast once you go out of the room.

⚠️ The craving will feel very strong, and if it feels overwhelming, try to distract yourself with some other sensory-stimulating or mentally challenging activity. Also, try to create some distance between yourself and the food item. That really helps with the delicious smells.

Finally, try to factor in some social accountability. Tell your friends and family what you are trying to do -- eating fewer sweets -- then they can help hold you accountable. hopefully not in a mean way, but in a supportive way hopefully. Sometimes just broadcasting our intentions helps us to make sure we achieve them because we know it will be a little bit embarrassing to go back on our word.

Hope that helps! Email me if you need ANYTHING. I may not know what to say but I can always listen.


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