Stop at the first oneHabits

unbry

Stop at the first one

A short book about eating crisps, sweets and snacks straight from the packet until it's empty

28 chapters11,565 wordsAbout 53 minFirst edition

What's inside

·Before you startThis is a short book and you can read it in two or three sittings. It's about one habit. You open a bag of crisps, or sweets, or a tub of something…2 min
1The bottom of the bagIt's half past eight and you're on the sofa with a programme on. You've had dinner. You fancy something, and there's a sharing bag of crisps in the…2 min
2Why the packet seems fineBefore I argue with the run, I want to be fair to it, because the reasons for it are ordinary and the people who do it aren't gluttons. It's a snack. Not…2 min
3"I'll just have a few"Start with the intention, because it's real and it fails every time, and the reason it fails is one of the tidier findings in the psychology of eating.…2 min
4"I eat until I've had enough"Here's a belief about your body. You eat until you've had enough. Hunger goes, or the wanting goes, and you stop. If the bag's empty, you must have wanted…2 min
5"It's just a small packet"Some readers will say the sharing bag isn't the problem, because they buy the ordinary ones, or the packet isn't that big, or a hundred and fifty grams…2 min
6"I was hungry"Sometimes the run gets explained by appetite. You'd had a small dinner. You were peckish. The bag went because you needed it. Look at what the first crisp…2 min
7"I wasn't paying attention"You'd say this as an excuse, in a slightly embarrassed way. The programme was good. You weren't concentrating. It just happened. I'd say it as the…2 min
8"It's willpower"At the bottom of the bag, the verdict is willpower. You haven't got any. Other people can have three crisps and put the bag away, and you can't, and…2 min
9"Once it's open it has to be finished"Here's a belief about bags rather than about you. An open bag is a bag in progress. It'll go stale. It's a waste to leave it. Finishing it is tidiness.…2 min
10"A bowl is fussy"Some readers will resist the bowl on grounds of temperament. Pouring crisps into a bowl is what your grandmother did. It's fussy. It's the sort of thing…2 min
11"I'm a grown adult, I can eat what I want"Some readers will bristle at a book about cereal bowls. You're an adult. You earn your money and buy your crisps and eat them how you like, and a rule…2 min
12"I don't remember eating that much"The surprise at the bottom has a particular quality. It's not that you decided to eat the bag and regret it. It's that you don't remember eating it at…2 min
13"I'll make up for it tomorrow"At the bottom of the bag comes a resolution. Tomorrow will be better. No crisps tomorrow. A run tomorrow. Salad. An earlier book in this series is about…1 min
14"They're made to be eaten like that"There's a fair observation under some of this, which is that the packet isn't neutral. A sharing bag is designed. The size, the resealability that doesn't…2 min
15"It's the only treat I get"This is the belief I want to be gentlest with, because I share the premise. The evening snack is one of the few small pleasures in a day full of things…2 min
16"I can't stop halfway"Here's the objection from experience. You've tried. You've opened a bag meaning to have half and put it away, and you didn't, because halfway is a place…2 min
17"I've tried the small bags and I just open two"Here's the objection from a reader who's already tried chapter 21's method. Small bags. Multipack. And on the sofa, the first one went and the hand went…2 min
18What the run costs youI've argued the mechanism. This chapter is the bill, and it's smaller than a diet book would make it and larger than "it's just a snack". The label. Turn…2 min
19What it does to the snackThere's a cost that lands on the crisps, and it's the one that convinces most people, in my experience, because it's about pleasure and not about health.…2 min
20Put it in a bowlThe next three chapters are the method, and the method is short, because most of it is a cereal bowl. The bowl. Whatever you'd call a few, pour that into…2 min
21Buy the unit you'd eatThe bowl works at the sofa. This chapter works at the shop, and it's the version of the method that needs no fifteen seconds at all, because the partition…2 min
22Eat it looking at itThe bowl sets the amount. This chapter is about the two minutes it takes to eat it, and it's the part that gives you the snack back. No screen for the…2 min
23The decisionYou've got the argument and the method. What's left is to decide, and I'd like the decision to fit in one sentence. I put what I'm going to eat in a bowl…2 min
24Sweets, nuts, the cinema, the car, the children's packets and when it's more than a habitThe rule holds for every packet. A few need their own paragraph. Sweets. The unit is the bag and the bag is a day's sugar, by the NHS's thirty-gram guide.…2 min
25When you reached the bottom againIt'll happen. A bad day, the bag already open, the programme already on, and your hand will find the bottom before you've thought of the bowl. Then the…2 min
26The bottom of the bowlIt's half past eight, some months on, and you're on the sofa. You fancy something. You go to the cupboard, and there's a multipack of small bags and a…2 min
·NotesThis book gives general information about an everyday habit. It isn't medical or dietary advice, and it's no substitute for a GP, a dietitian or an eating…4 min