This recipe is especially helpful for sugar and carb addicts, emotional eaters, and other food addicts!
*Note: The directions specifically mention foods from a low carb diet pantry and fridge, but these snacks can be easily substituted with any foods around your house in order to sabotage whichever diet you are trying to follow!
Ingredients:
- Television with cable subscription
- TV tray
- Boring evening or fatigue after a long day or emotional upset
- Pantry full of snacks that might fit diet, but only if eaten in moderation and not right before bed.
- Additional stash of snacks you promised yourself not to eat (optional)
- Fridge, as pantry, above
- Sugar or carb addiction (optional)
Steps:
- Preheat brain by allowing willpower to wane to its lowest point of the day. Willpower diminishes throughout the day and is at its lowest strength in the evening through nighttime. At this point, turn on the tv and flip to Food Network
- Place body onto a cozy couch and allow to rest. Do not move except to recline. This prevents any incidental exercise or distraction that might interfere with diet sabotage.
- Inside pre-heated brain, allow association between television and snacking to light up familiar neural pathways. This is the cue to raid the pantry or refrigerator and search for anything tasty and highly caloric. You will want something salty, crunchy, and/or sweet that will pair with watching tv.
- Return body to couch, placing packages of pumpkin seeds, nuts, cheese or any combination thereof onto tv trays*. Do not measure out into reasonable size portions. Avoid being mindful about consuming food or messages from your stomach about fullness. Instead, eat mindlessly while the show warms up with introductions to the bakers and previews of the treats they will make.
- As desire for the already-consumed foods evaporates, sugar-craving brain (dopamine receptors) will still be unsatisfied. Return to pantry for almonds, freeze dried raspberries, kale chips and vegetables and dip, or similar*.
- Watch advertisements for sugary and carb-y foods not on diet*. Notice the world is full of an overabundance of delicious food you could be eating right now. Except that you promised yourself not to. At this point, feelings of deprivation should be at full boil, as are feelings of shame at overeating all evening.
- Return to kitchen and consume more foods standing in front of pantry. Include more of the calorically dense seeds, nuts, cheese and blocks of Stevia sweetened chocolate.*
- Return body to couch again.
- Continue watching bake-off show. Consider the artistry, techniques. Pretend that dessert is not calling like a siren song.
- Inside brain any combination of sugary food cues, tiredness, boredom, and/or emotional upset sparks the urge to eat more. These urges may be extremely sticky and result from sugar or other food addictions.
- Pick through pantry and fridge for anything slightly sweet. Eat handfuls of Stevia sweetened chocolate chips. Pour crumbs of dehydrated raspberries into mouth and into plain yogurt.* Note that the use of fruit or other fructose sweetened foods are particularly useful in sabotaging one’s diet because they will cause the body to store fat, as fructose cannot be directly used as energy. Even Stevia is helpful: the sweet taste of non-sugar sweeteners like Stevia causes insulin to be released by the brain which thinks sugar is coming and increasing hunger results.
- As with Pavlov’s dogs, saliva collects in mouth as the camera zooms in and judges taste and describe the delicious flavors and textures. The stomach is full, but the mouth tells the brain to consume the treats one can almost smell through the television. In response, eat more of the unsatisfying yogurt* as judges are tasting chocolate and salted caramel.
- At this time stomach should be overfull and bloated to the touch. Sadness at overeating simmers.
- Checking the time on the cable box, notice that bedtime has already passed but the show is not over. Recline in defeat. The body may drift asleep just before the winner of show is announced. Rise from slumber disappointed in self, show, eating habits, life in general. Filled with regret, pick out more snacks and watch another episode before going to bed.
