Changing the Way We Think About Food

I read in quite a few places that us junk-food junkies can get to a place where sweets just aren't that important to us. Of course, I was one of those people who couldn't walk past ANY cake, cookie, chocolate-whatever or other sugary snack without having some. My taste buds demanded--commanded that I eat, eat, eat. That is, after all, what makes me a junk-food junkie.

At work, someone brought in doughnuts and, as I chowed down on a chocolate-covered pastry with jimmies, one of the other ladies took a look in the box and said, "I am not going to sin for that." I admired her. I wanted to be her, to be able to walk away from sugary goodness without feeling deprived. But, I'm a junk-food junkie.

Well, in case you don't recall, one of the first things I did was try to find recipes for the lesser evils. That is, I sought out recipes for cookies and cakes with substituted ingredients that would trick my taste buds into thinking they were getting what they demanded without the fat cells on my body swelling. I did find some great recipes and dedicated myself to those.

Then, I had to tackle that monster at work: the vending machine. I had to find some way to alter my thinking about them. Then, it occurred to me that I needed to stop just looking at calorie content in isolation. I needed to take things a step further and look at each snack as "x" number of minutes doing "x" exercise to rid my body of the "sin." After three months of making better choices at the vending machine, I--a certified junk-food junkie--walked away from the grocery store bakery counter without getting a single cake or cookie for myself. When I look at these things now, I don't think of how great they taste (OK, I don't just think about that), but I think about how much effort it takes to get it back out of my body.

Here's an article I wrote that can help you change your thinking, too:
Burn Off Candy Calories in an Hour or Less 
Diet denial means ignoring the amount of physical activity it will take to burn off the calories from those not-so-good-for-you vending machine snacks you eat. Men and women can explore exactly how much time they’ll have to invest in different activities.