C: I ate six pieces of baked sugar flour and chocolate
T: I shouldn’t have eaten that
F: urge
A: count calories, resist my emotions, crave more cookies, worry about the scale, obsess about eating more cookies, think about working out tomorrow to burn off cookies
R: I reinforce to myself that cookies ate bad and that I have to resist them

I have to be more willing to experience urges to eat cookies if I actually don’t want to eat them. I don’t want to eat them because they make me bloated and make me break out and make my mental health a mess.

But in the moment, I really wanted cookies. My brain was short circuiting from watching the bachelor and I was getting all up in my own emotions about the guy I’m dating. I started beating myself up for not working out and I criticized my body because I’m getting varicose veins.

Tomorrow, I don’t want to eat any sugar and flour. I am going to have dinner in the evening and probably a drink. I don’t want to feel bad. I think a more powerful motivator would be that I want to feel GOOD at dinner. But when I think about tomorrow, I don’t feel confident that I won’t have a cookie.

What I want to believe is that “I can stick to protocol with ease, and avoiding cookies is not an issue for me at all.” That’s what I want to believe.

I have in fact done this before. I have stuck to my protocol with ease and I have avoided cookies with ease, too.

So that feels true.

I am 100% committed to sticking to my protocol tomorrow even if I feel an urge

Urges are not problems for me, I have felt urges before and they are okay, nothing I can’t handle. I can fully welcome and embrace any urge. Bring it on. I am a person who fully welcomes and embraces urges without any issue.

I do feel better about that little rampage.

I know what I use as an excuse is that “I didn’t eat perfectly so I might as well just have another cookie.” I see that’s a thought.

C: deviation from protocol
T: I didn’t eat perfectly so I might as well have more cookies
F: urge for cookies
A: eat cookies
R: I train myself to eat cookies when I have an urge for them.

First of all I have to celebrate that I DID make an excellent food substitution at lunch when they didn’t have what I planned. I am doing AMAZING at not having any coffee or Diet Coke, like honestly I am killing that. I did such a good job fasting today I didn’t eat until after 2:00. Im also doing an amazing job with taking off my makeup and sticking to Monday hour one, and I’ve actually accomplished a ton this year. So I can celebrate myself for sure. I am more conscious than I ever have been.

I am so used to measuring success by the scale, that my dopamine is so tied to this behavior. It’s going to be work to change it. And I’m up for it.

I’m also dreading a difficult conversation with a guy where I’m going to have to be vulnerable and have my own back 100%. I notice when I think about it, I get urges. I will write about this in another model.