See-food Diet

A psychology professor named Angela Duckworth wrote in the New York Times about a phenomenon she calls situational agency. She means that willpower is not what works to get yourself to resist temptation, or to do something you know you should. Instead, successful people create a structure around themselves that minimizes the need for willpower.

In our house, we refer to that as the see-food diet. Rather than try to resist temptation, we simply remove temptation. We rarely keep anything in the house that we don’t think we should eat. No junk food. Only high quality chocolate, with which we treat ourselves. (Daily – one of the basic food groups, right?!)

Research consistently shows that removing temptations from sight helps avoid them, and making “shoulds” like exercise more fun makes you more likely to accomplish them. Taking a walk with a friend, or while listening to a podcast, helps you get those steps in, as does having comfortable shoes at the ready. Ditto having something interesting to look at, like cafes and shops in a city, or crashing waves and boats at the shore.

This is what enabled us to walk for miles every day during our winter stay in New York City. There was always a different route to walk, or new storefronts and menus to check out. The walking somehow balanced out all our restaurant meals that month. One of our favorite eateries is long gone, but is immortalized in this painting of staff preparing “Before Lunch Rush.”