  | Knowing how to avoid slip-ups in your healthy eating plan can help keep small problems from snowballing into big ones. |
First, let's start with some definitions:
- A lapse is a slight error or slip. It's a single event, like indulging in a "forbidden" food, eating more calories than planned or gaining weight.
- A relapse is a number of lapses strung together, causing you to return to your former way of eating.
- When a relapse is total and there is little hope of reversing the negative trend, a collapse has occurred.
It's important to remember that a lapse does not a relapse make! If you can see a lapse for what it is - a temporary problem - you can be prepared to respond positively. We all have setbacks; one of the keys to long-term weight control is dealing with these setbacks in a way that gets you back on track quickly. Try to think of a lapse as a learning opportunity, turn a negative into a positive.
Identifying Urges and High-Risk Situations
Think about when you are most likely to find your eating plan threatened (complete the Why I Eat Inventory for some insights into your eating triggers). Is it when you have certain feelings, like loneliness or frustration? Or when you have to deal with someone you don't like? Or when someone offers you food?
Think about all of the situations that bring on your eating urges. Then plan ahead. The "Outlasting the Urges" technique below will help you learn to find eating alternatives when you're faced with high-risk situations.
Outlasting the Urges
You may be surprised to learn that an urge will usually go away if you just wait it out. This goes against the belief that many people hold - that the only way to make an urge subside is to gratify it by eating.
In fact, giving in to your urge by eating actually makes urges stronger and more frequent. On the other hand, letting the urge pass, much like a wave rolling into the shore, will weaken it. If you can outlast enough of your urges, they will fade away.
The image of "urge surfing" is a good one. Pretend that you are learning to surf. As the wave rolls in, you can battle it and get wiped out, or you can maintain your balance and "ride" the wave until it subsides.
Being a good wave surfer involves pinpointing your urges early in their development, then readying your skills to ride he wave: If the wave hits you full-strength when you're unprepared, you may wipe out no matter how well you surf. If you spot the wave early but you can't surf, you may also wipe out. So both parts of the equation are important: early recognition and the skills to cope with urges.
Copyright 2002 Brigham and Women's Hospital
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