Once you resolve to avoid X or not do Y, it's like you start seeing nothing but X and Y all over. If you've sworn off chocolate, all of a sudden it seems like your office mates are bringing in bowls of Lindt bars and Cadbury eggs every other day adn just casually leaving them around. The week you decide to stop drinking is the week an old university buddy gets in touch with you and wants to meet for a few beers. Before too long, a sick version of Baader-Meinhof Phenomenon starts to play out and what was just another day at the office or another walk past the convenience store is suddenly full of traps and "bad foods" and ways to fail. Except nothing's really changed, of course: our brains are just wired to notice patterns and that makes it only seem like there are Kinder Eggs everywhere, with nefarious plans to sabotage your attempt at self-improvement with delicious chocolates and fun little toys. It's enough to make a man crack and toss the whole diet thing out the window. Then, we all have weirdo little beliefs about food we would never admit to out loud, but we still act on them as if they're true. Everyone has different ones, but stop me if some of these sound familiar: food eaten alone or standing up "doesn't count," eating less than a full serving of something is like eating nothing at all, etc. I knew a girl who would tap a carton of cookies before she opened it to "shake out the calories." Of course she knew that wasn't how it worked, but still she did it. Little tricks like that seem harmless, and they would be if they were isolated, rare incidents. More often than not, though, they're daily occurrences and have a cumulative effect on your effort to lose weight. And still more, if you inadvertently go 100 calories over your limit for the day, or miss a workout because you had a cold and were just too goddamn tired, all your scumbag brain is going to do is focus on that, and not all the times you stuck to your meal plans or went to the gym when you didn't feel like it. If your brain is feeling extra scummy, it'll go into full-on breakdown mode. This one failure now means you will always fail forever! And if that's not enough to make you quit, it's still enough to really affect your quality of mental life.
After obtaining a BA in Philosophy and Creative Writing, Katherine spent two years and change teaching English in South Korea. Now she lives in Sweden and edits articles for Turkish science journals. When she isn't writing, editing, or working on her NaNo novel, Katherine enjoys video games, movies, and British television.
