No matter how careful you are when first setting out on your journey of weight/fat loss at some point along this journey you will hit head-on into a serious food temptation or craving.

It doesn’t matter that you’ve cleaned your kitchen cupboards and refrigerator of any tempting food items that would derail you from sticking to your diet plan. Nor does it matter that you’ve been extra careful to stay away from the processed food aisles in the grocery store and are now concentrating on the perimeters of the store where most of the fresh foods are found.

Truth is, unless you hide yourself in a room and don’t leave the house until you’ve reached your goals, the world of temptation is no further away than your next “meal out.” And, in actuality, once you’ve reached your goals if you have not already dealt with your cravings and temptations you will surely have to then for you can’t make the world go away.

You must learn to live in the world with your new lifestyle.

What do you do when…

• Your co-worker brings in a box of your favorite donuts…the very ones you have been so careful to keep out of your house and your reach. You’ve even begun to take a different way home to avoid the temptation of actually seeing that donut business but now it’s staring right at you within an arm’s reach.
• You are dining out with a friend and a basket of yummy warm bread arrives on the table. Bread has always been your weakness…especially warm bread.
• It’s another birthday you are attending and that buttercream icing is calling out to you.

How do you handle temptations like these that seem to grab on and keep you in their grip?

How do you handle those programmed “cravings” that you’ve given into all these years? If you are not prepared with a defense mechanism in place…then failure is given the upper hand to come out the winner.

The key is flexing your will power.

The more you use it the stronger it gets…just like your other muscles. If you ignore it and don’t exercise it…it becomes weak and research has shown that you can indeed strengthen your “will power” muscle and fine tune your self-control just like you do with your other muscles.

Every time we use our “will power” we strengthen it so every temptation or craving after that gets easier….just like using your other muscles.

There are exercises you can use ahead of time to strengthen your will power…such as flexing your visionary power and using your imagination to create positive images of your desired goals.  When the weak “moment” comes and you need that image, it readily appears in your mind.

For example, you might imagine yourself in those skinny jeans and how excited you are about fitting into them. What does it feel like to look in the mirror and “see” such a fit and healthy body? Get into those emotions and feelings so when you need them you’ll be able to call on them.

For some people, the act of writing down what emotions and images they are feeling and seeing when they experience weak moments really helps to shift their programming and to rewrite their story from weak to strong.

The most important thing to remember when you do fall off your dieting goals, (notice I said when and not if…you will fall at some point)…is to pick yourself back up and get going again…minus any negative thoughts or feelings about what happened. No guilt allowed…nor defeatist programming…it only brings on more of the same.

Don’t create more pressure on yourself by thinking you will be perfect. You won’t. It’s not human nature to be perfect so we must prepare for those times when we do experience that “weaker moment.”

You do have the tools…but you have to take action and use them

It’s time to discover the difference between low nutrient foods and high nutrient foods. For more extensive information and to discover a list of 100 foods that are actually good for you as well as a list of those that aren’t, check out: “The Anti-Aging Foods Compendium.”