Here’s another one that comes to mind, in the category of things we cannot hear too often:
Make your environment do the work, so that you don’t have to.
All I can think of by way of example, is that nobody ever white-knuckled it through a dull evening when there were zero goodies lurking on the counter of their kitchen. Like, if you never make a tray of black bean brownies, then there is nothing whatsoever making you want to recreationally eat after you are done with dinner.
A bad environment is the downfall of so, so many Americans. Bad environment in their office culture, bad environment at family gatherings, bad environment at the grocery stores, bad environment in their homes.
I think it is good to craft environments where we hit the mark every time, without really trying too hard.
My personal example, is that for my first five years with this way of eating, I did not keep a salt shaker in the home. So I never oversalted my food.
This winter I experimented with keeping salt in the house. I oversalted my food.
Then threw the salt away, and re-established a simple and salt free home.
If the environment does the work, how happy that is for me! Really, this should not be so difficult. I think we would do well to keep that as a blueprint in our minds to refer back to. This should be the easiest safest environment imaginable.
It is unthinkable to imagine ever doing well in a bad environment over the long haul. Bad environments break us down, or at least they downgrade our chances of success. Don’t enter a bad environment if there is an option to stay away.
On a side note, my version of a bad environment is personal to me. I have gone to the same coffee shop for almost three years, which doubles as an ice cream shop. They make it in house, ten or so flavors of it. And yet, I have not felt tempted even once, to buy anything other than coffee or tea. So, I can reliably say that ice cream shops are a safe environment for me.
I would categorize certain aisles of the grocery store as safe environments, and other areas as bad environments for me personally. I could go down the dairy aisle, no problem. I just don’t have any love for cow pus in any form. Just not a temptation. — However, I have absolutely no business ever going down the aisle with the nut butters, or the breads, because I’ve got a history there. Those were always my trigger foods and my binge foods.
That’s all for this topic! Done.