The last two posts here have something in common, but it will take a bit of explaining. You see, when you cut out certain foods or foods with certain ingredients from your daily life, your body appreciates it. By eliminating chips, chocolate, trans fats and other junk foods from my diet, even with my relatively low inactivity rate of late (about an hour of walking every day, 1/2 hour on the way to work and 1/2 back, but no strength training or exhaustive cardio) I've gained little weight... actually, to be honest, I've lost some since I started the diet.
When you put yourself on a budget, and whe you put your credit cards away, so they can't be accessed, and you don't allow yourself to use any sort of credit for purchasing, well, your pocketbook thanks you. You actually start to manage to whittle away at the debt that plagues you.
It's only by ignoring (or willfully resisting) eating highly tasty, yet unhealthy foods as well as ceasing satiating, yet frivolous spending that any sense of loss (weight and debt) - or, realisticlally, gain (health and solvency) - can be achieved.
It's when you start dipping, thinking that one $40 dollar dinner here or 10 mini-chocolate bars there won't have any impact that you undermine the whole process, because invariably, one falter leads to more, and those then become setbacks. I can already the effects of the bag of Hickory Sticks (hey, I said to myself, they don't say "chips" anywhere on the package) I've been slowly enjoying over the past week, the couple dips into the stepson's Hallowe'en candy, and the pumpkin pie from last week, not to mention the few doses of pastries and baked goods as well as the triple dose of popcorn and butter I all ate during my film fest coverage. It's not been good on my body or my system, and now that I think of it, my rough sleeping is likely not attributed to my wonky film fest schedule, but more likely this gorging.
Similarly, I had made headway in paying off debt, or so I thought. Looking at my declining Visa and line of credit balances, I thought good things were happening. What I didn't realize was that my other credit card, which had replaced my Visa as primary, I had been using for various frivolous (as well as larger) expendatures over the past few months and more than tripled its balance, which in turn virtually counteracted all of the good work I'd done on my other credit.
The parallels are there, and the reality is that it's behavioural and not inherent to one or the other. I'm sure there are food addicts who are fiscally sound, as there are probably debt addled shoppers who can resist the lure of Lays and Tim Hortons. But it's really interesting to me how one sensibilty can so easily be duplicated across habits... interesting, and frightening. But knowledge is power... only, is it willpower?