Ryu's Blog

It’s half way through my internship, and I’ve gained around 2kg of weight. Perhaps I should start another diet challenge (see here and here). The weight gain is both due to less exercise (I only go to gym during weekend now) and more importantly, the increased consumption of chocolates and sweets. Our division has a policy that anyone coming back from travel should bring back sweets. I never figure out who set the rule, but I guess it’s our manager as he is a sweets junkie. Since summer’s the travelling season, almost every week there’ll be new chocolates proliferating around the division. German chocolates, Swiss, Spanish, Irish, Austrian, you name it.

As a rule, I generally don’t buy junk foods or sweets myself, but I’d eat them if they are available, especially if they are sweets I never had before as I derive pleasure from trying new foods. The problem now is that even if I just try one of every type of chocolates around, the amount still seems excessive.

What should I do? I view this as a kind of time inconsistency problem economists study. I can think of a few solutions for it. One way is to eliminate the problem altogether (e.g. have someone take the chocolates away so I don’t face the temptation and won’t face the problem anymore). But this is not feasible in this case as the chocolates are communal. Another solution is changing my preference (e.g. making myself hate chocolates either by deception or by reading more about its bad effects). But why would I want to deceive myself? And I know enough about the nutrition values of chocolates and still find the pleasure from moderate consumption (especially novel ones) outweigh the costs. The last solution that come to my mind is by setting rule for myself (I won’t consume any sweets, or I’ll only have one chocolate per day, etc.). I find this method useful as I generally have the will power to follow through rules I set for myself. But it seems a bit rigid and takes out the spontaneous pleasure of consuming whenever one wishes. I’m wondering whether there are other ways I could achieve the same outcome without having to follow a rigid rule.

Any ideas?