Tracy Mann: I can't be strong – be smart

Diet can be compared with the breath – sooner or later still have to exhale and inhale. The way out is to train yourself to think about food differently – the "smart" approach will allow you to achieve harmony and to maintain the achieved result.

Tracy Mann, one of the most respected in the US, researchers of the psychology of power and a woman with cheerful character, which also is not easy to resist the delicious food and force yourself to exercise, offers some simple effective techniques.





In the Russian language came her short and exciting, with examples from the life of the author, the book "Secrets of a lab power supply". In it, Tracy Mann, based on data from scientific experiments, proves that our will power is powerless to stop the overeating.

Instead, it offers effective strategies to change thoughts in relation to food.

 

1. Include abstract thinking

 

Imagine the treat in front of which you are the most difficult to resist and can almost never stop at one serving. Like a cake, with whipped cream or fondant with melting chocolate inside and the maddening smell of cocoa all over the kitchen... Fragrant warm bread with a crispy crust, fresh from the oven, and it is melting brie cheese, fresh greens and tomatoes, pizza.

How I described the food above is called sensory description – what we call in the memory of the taste, the smell – and had to resist the temptation becomes very difficult.

Instead, Tracy Mann offers to switch to abstract thinking: to think about taste and smell and the size, shape or color of the dish, in the most distant categories. For example, you can say to yourself that a cake "is a typical dessert dish", "a kind of sweet food", bread – "bakery product made from wheat flour". Another option: think on what non-edible object like a treat. For example, the Zephyr's "fluffy white cloud" and not "air, melting on the tongue marshmallow flavored creme brulee".





2. Use the reception of "actionable intents"

 

The term "actionable intent" psychologists call a plan of action that we will take when hit in a certain expected situation. Feasible intentions are expressed in the form of statements"if – then", which specify where, when and how you will act in a particular situation. For example, "if at a cocktail party, the waiter will offer me a snack meats, I'll try anything but one thing".

The more specific your claims, the higher their effectiveness. Instead of "if I dine out, get healthy food", better to stay on "if I'm eating out, order a salad."

Welcome "if — then" works fine, and in the case of physical exercises. "If I want to miss a workout because of fatigue, I'm going to do low-intensity exercise". It helps, says Tracy Mann as the probability that, starting the training, you will engage as intensively as usual (and if not, then the low intensity workout is better than nothing). The main thing is to force yourself to start.

"In order for the strategy to be effective, you need to study the wording of feasible intentions, and then just repeat a few times, says Tracy Mann. – Do not have to decide on the spot what to do, — the choice is already made".

But some form of feasible intentions can be useless or counterproductive, warns the author. For example, rarely helps install not to do something. In the course of the research, the people having their intentions as, "if I get bored and want to eat, I will not eat chocolate" ate more harmful sweets than those whose language sounded like "If I get bored and want to snack, then I eat the Apple". The fact that the form of denial to the forefront in the mind goes what you are not going to do, and the scheme of the new behavior is not generated. Boredom forces us to concentrate on thoughts of chocolate and bothers to come up with an alternative.

 

3. Eating

 

Scientists do not yet know the exact cause, but the fact remains: when something distracts us during the meal, the taste of her as "dissipated" with our attention. As a result, we do not have enough pleasure, and we reach for new additions to "catch" it. Next time try to focus on the sensations during a meal – savor dishes like a treat, which you have long dreamed of.





4. Don't say "useful", you say "delicious"

 

The idea that we eat something useful, alas, does not add to the palatability of the product – on the contrary, according to scientific experiments, we want to eat something delicious to reward that ate useful. So should delete from your diet the word "useful" instead, and to accustom themselves to call Apple or red peppers or other similar foods and dishes from vegetables with the words "delicious", "delicious", "crisp", "fruity", "sweet", "Babushkin", "home" etc. Cm. the point about abstract thinking, only in reverse – to sensual thinking.

 

Also interesting: 23 way to put brains into place

Very useful crib, is indispensable for every woman!

 

5. The anti-anxiety and boredom

 

In the English language is the expression of "comfortable food" — comforting or soothing food, usually associated with happy childhood memories. Bakery, baking, chocolate and other sweets, borscht with black bread, fried potatoes with mushrooms or mashed potatoes, pasta, dumplings, dumplings – we all have our own versions of the dishes that we reach for solace or nothing to do. So, as found in scientific studies to traci Mann and her colleagues, in fact, this food is not has a calming effect. Gets either worse or the mood is not changing.

Is effective at the time of stress to move. Just 10 minutes mood and health significantly improved (incredibly, even the pain subsides). You can do a couple of favorite exercises, skip rope, walk briskly.published

 





Source: smart-cookie.ru/weight-loss/ne-mozhesh-byt-silnym-bud-umnym/