Pop Pscyhology and Abstinence

I think our disease is very much psychological. As the Brown Book puts it, it is a "disease of mind" as well as a disease of body and spirit.But everyone knows that. Pop psychology and calorie counting are the two big "tools" of the conventional diet. Today I began thinking about how I have set myself up to associate positive things with food. I plan my breaks from study and work around meals and, consequently, today, when I found myself struggling with my study and I began to fantasize and obsess over the small tub of yoghurt I was going to allow myself to eat in my next break. This then led me to think how all this study deserved more than just one little tub of yoghurt and, that it wouldn't hurt to have a couple , maybe something a bit "naughty" as well...you guys get the picture.

Now, in my education course, I've been learning about "behaviourist psychology". Basically this is the idea of learning through association and reinforcement. So, the more times we experience X and something positive together, the more we will associate X with positive things and thus react positively to X, and vice versa. It's sound theory and it's used by teachers the world over. So I decided then and there that I would exercise in my break and eat my yoghurt at the computer after I finished my break. That worked fairly well today, so I think there is some merit in using psychology to help ourselves. I am particularly interested in Sociocultural psychology, which talks about how we use the mental and emotional tools provided to us by the people around us.

But I also realised that one of the other common diet recommendations is not to eat whilst doing something else. So in a way it's a vicious cycle. That's why the simple fixes are doomed to failure, because they will soon stop working, and then we will be in a worse situation than before and have to try some marvelous new idea.

When I think about it, is the problem that I associate food with the positive experience of having a break, or is the problem that I have an unhealthy attitude to life that makes breaks such a powerful incentive for me?. The rest of the world plan's their lives breaks around meals without any trouble, so it certainly isn't that. It must be the deeper problem: that I cannot live in the present, that I cannot enjoy my work, that I cannot enjoy life. Admittedly the inability to live in the present probably has something to do with my ADHD and thus my inability to focus on the task at hand, but I think it goes deeper than that. Psychology is important but it's not the only answer.

Ok so I was writing this stuff coz I was "hungry" (read obsessing about eating) so if it doesnt' make sense who cares.