END EMOTION-DRIVEN EATING: SHE PLAYS THE WAITING GAME

Verona Mucci-Hurlburt just loves the steak fries that are served in the cafeteria of the building where she works. But the 38-year-old chiropractor from Chicago knows that they’re no good for her figure. So when she sees them on the menu, she employs a strategy that helps curb her craving. She tells herself that she can have them later.

Postponing her indulgences in this way helped Verona end her lifelong battle of the bulge and lose 60 unwanted pounds—permanently.

Certainly, she has come a long way since the days when she carta j ried 212 pounds on her 5-foot-5i/2-inch frame. “I was chubby even § I as a child,” she recalls. “My mother put me on my first diet when I was just 4 years old “It was one of many that Verona would try over | the years. “Usually, I’d lose some weight,” she says. “But as soon as I went back to my old eating habits, the pounds returned.”

Then, in 1994, Verona enrolled in Weight Watchers. “I knew other people who had been successful on the program, so I decided to try it for myself,” she explains. She attended weekly meetings, in which she learned all about food choices and portion control. “The program gave me the structure and accountability that I needed to be successful,” she says.

Newly enlightened on the subject of nutrition, Verona realized that her love of certain high-fat foods, especially pizza and steak fries, could jeopardize her weight-loss efforts. She tried hard to stay away from them, but as she recalls, “I let myself say yes way too often.”

So she adjusted her game plan. Instead of forbidding herself her favorite foods, she simply delayed her indulgences. The steak fries are a great example. “The cafeteria served them every 2 weeks,” Verona says. “Instead of saying I couldn’t have them, I’d tell myself, ‘Wait until next time.’ Two weeks later, I’d ask myself if I still wanted them. Sometimes, I did. Other times, I could pass them up.”

The tactic worked so well that Verona applied it to other foods that didn’t fit into her eating plan. “I had to know up front that I could eat the food sometime in the future,” she explains. “The future could be 10 minutes away or 2 weeks away. The important thing was that I was taking time to think before I ate. That made all the difference.”

With practice, Verona found that she could extend her waiting periods even longer. “I went from 10 minutes to tomorrow to a special event next month,” she says. “I could pass up many fattening foods without feeling deprived.”

And it shows. In just 9 months, Verona was 60 pounds lighter. She has maintained her weight at 152 pounds ever since.

“For a woman of my stature, 152 pounds may seem heavy,” she observes. “But most of that weight is muscle because I’ve been doing strength training all along.” In fact, she became so enthusiastic about exercise that she now teaches aerobics classes on the side. “Working out and learning to say’later’ to fattening foods keeps me trim and fit,” she says.

WINNING A C T I O N

Postpone your indulgences. Three cheers to Verona for coming up with a fabulous craving buster. By telling yourself that you can have a “forbidden” food at a later time, you can turn your back on temptation without feeling deprived. And when the appointed hour arrives, you may find that you can pass up the food that, a few minutes, hours, or days ago, you couldn’t live without. If you still want it, go ahead and indulge. At least you’ve thought about it first.