I wonder if avoiding the food that you merely “want” and eating something you’ll “like” will always be sufficient for ridding yourself of the original desire. Suppose I finish that slice of cheesecake, but my cheeto craving remains unfulfilled? Perhaps it would be helpful to give into our desires in very small amounts, like eating 4 cheetos instead of the bag, so as to not carry around a bunch of unrealized desires all the time.
This can work, but the “4 cheetos and not the bag” is tricky. Eat four cheetos—then close the bag, put it away, walk into another room, and get comfy, so you don’t want to get up and get more cheetos when the aftertaste dies down and your mouth says “hey… wait… I was tasting that!”
Tying to eat only a small number seems like a bad idea; you’ll give your ape-mind the idea that cheetos are a constrained resource, and also keep the memory of what they taste like fresh, which will just make you want more of them.
I wonder if avoiding the food that you merely “want” and eating something you’ll “like” will always be sufficient for ridding yourself of the original desire. Suppose I finish that slice of cheesecake, but my cheeto craving remains unfulfilled? Perhaps it would be helpful to give into our desires in very small amounts, like eating 4 cheetos instead of the bag, so as to not carry around a bunch of unrealized desires all the time.
This can work, but the “4 cheetos and not the bag” is tricky. Eat four cheetos—then close the bag, put it away, walk into another room, and get comfy, so you don’t want to get up and get more cheetos when the aftertaste dies down and your mouth says “hey… wait… I was tasting that!”
Yep, that can work too—portion control.
For cheetos—you can buy those big packs full of little tiny packs… and just eat one of those.
Tying to eat only a small number seems like a bad idea; you’ll give your ape-mind the idea that cheetos are a constrained resource, and also keep the memory of what they taste like fresh, which will just make you want more of them.
Hm. Maybe our brains just work differently. I’ve had great success using this strategy to conserve ice cream :-)