This week I had a session with my dieter, Audrey, who is having a holiday-themed housewarming party on Sunday. In session we discussed how she would handle this – although we didn’t spend very much time talking about what she would do during the actual party. Over the last few months, Audrey has had a lot of practice going to parties and has gotten very good at doing things like making plans in advance, eating everything sitting down, not taking seconds, reading Response Cards, and saying no to food pushers. Audrey is also a classic secret eating – she is able to control her eating when other people are around and watching, but once she is alone, staying on track becomes much more difficult. Because of this, we knew that the main struggle for Audrey would be staying on track once the party was over and everyone had left, so that is what we focused on in session. Here is the After Party Plan we came up with:
Get rid of as many leftovers as possible. Knowing that she has trouble when she has crunchy, snacky food and sweets lying around the house, Audrey decided that she would send home as many leftovers as she could with her family and friends to minimize what she had left once the party was over.
Assess what leftovers are left and make a plan. Audrey knew that she would make her life much easier if she had a plan for each component of leftover party food and so for each one she would decide whether to keep it, throw it away, or bring it to her office the next day.
Put the office leftovers right into the trunk of her car. Audrey knew that, even if she had a pile of leftovers specifically ear-marked for her office, there was still a chance she would get into them Sunday night if they were hanging around on her counter. Because of this, Audrey decided that out of sight-out of mind was her best strategy and so she would put the office leftovers right into the trunk of her car where she couldn’t see them or easily access them.
Immediately throw away what leftovers she was planning to toss. Audrey knew it might be difficult to get herself to actually throw away certain leftovers, and identified that these are the sabotaging thoughts she’s most likely to have: “I paid for it so I should eat it,” and, “I might have company over again soon so I should save the half box of crackers for then.” To help her overcome these sabotaging thoughts, Audrey made the following Response Cards:
I’ve already paid for the food and so the money is already gone. Eating the food won’t bring the money back, it will just cause me to take in extra calories and gain weight. Just throw it out!
The cost of keeping a half box of crackers is so much higher than the cost of throwing it out and buying another one the next time I have company. If I keep it, I’ll likely end up overeating them, getting off track, and feeling badly and guilty. It’s worth the cost of a new box of crackers to stop this from happening.
Individually portion the leftovers she was keeping and make a plan for when she would eat them. Audrey decided that there were some leftovers that would be worth keeping because she could bring them as part of her lunch over the next week or have them for dessert in the evening. However, Audrey also knew that having large bags of snacks has been problematic in the past, so she decided that she would immediately divide the leftovers into individual portions and then wrap them up. Audrey also knew that having highly tempting food around her apartment with no specific plan of when she would eat it was a recipe for causing lots of struggle, so she decided that she would figure out ahead of time exactly when she would have it. That way, she was much less likely to go overboard when she did eat this tempting food because she would be able to say to herself, “I don’t need to eat more now, I know I can have it again tomorrow. And, if I wait until tomorrow, I’ll enjoy it more because I won’t feel guilty about eating it.”