Defensive eating

Today is Christmas. I am not sure what that means at your place, (although, I bet I can guess!) but at ours it means lots of food. It is time to think about eating defensively.

The enemy is the pecan pie. I can attempt to defeat the enemy by saying, “I will not eat the pecan pie. I will not eat the pecan pie. I will not eat the pecan pie.” This has about 1% chance of working. OK, I will come out of my denial. It doesn’t have any chance at all of working.

How do I defeat the enemy? Think about this. Are you tempted to eat the pecan pie when you are stuffed to the gills? Not so much.

So, eating defensively is about filling your stomach with good things so that you won’t be tempted to eat bad things. It is filling up on veggies and salad so you won’t be tempted to eat pecan pie.

Rick Warren says, “Never go to a party hungry. If you have a snack before, you won’t be tempted to eat every greasy, fried, or sugary food.”[1]

This is true in nearly every arena of life. There is a verse in the Bible that says, “Overcome evil with good.” It is the principle of replacement. We don’t overcome evil by trying really hard. Trying really hard rarely works. We overcome evil by replacing it with good.

The first diet book I read was based on this principle. The Pritikin Program  was based on the theory that once your stomach is full, it is full. You are happy. You are not tempted to eat any more. It is like the old saying: pregnancy is the best form of birth control. You can’t get pregnant when you are pregnant. And, you won’t be tempted to eat pecan pie when your stomach is full.