The temptation is always there. The temptation to dive face first into a pile of junk food and begin the surprisingly short process of gaining back all of the weight I’ve lost is always right there.

All of my company’s buildings have kitchenettes on every floor. There’s refrigerators, coffee makers, water coolers, sinks, various supplies, soda machines, and candy machines.

Since my lifestyle changing diet began a little more than three months ago I have, for the most part, only been using the fridge. I have brought my lunch to work with me every day since starting the diet. When I come in each day I put my lunch in the fridge, and that’s it. There are also occasions when I need caffeine. Eliminating caffeine was one of my initial goals for losing weight. That and eliminating coca~cola. I have been 100% successful on the coke front, and maybe 90% successful on the caffeine front. Some days I just need a boost. When that happens I’ll head to the kitchen and get a diet coke, or a coke zero. On average I would say it happens once out of 10 work days. Much more than I’d like, but not the end of the world.

Other than that, I only use the fridge. Around 1:00pm I go to the kitchen, grab my lunch, maybe a paper towel or two if the stack on my desk is getting low, and that’s it. No fuss, no cheating.

Today though…

I let my eyes wander to the candy machine. They immediately settled on the holy trinity of delicious candy bars: Snickers, Milky Way, and 3 Musketeers. They were all there, like a Roman triumvirate ruling over a senate made up of all of the rest of the junk food in the machine.

The temptation to cheat was overwhelming. It was like a physical weight pressing down on me. I would guess it weighed the same as the 33 pounds I’ve lost so far.

I did not give in. I did not cheat. I had my bag lunch and that was it. No junk food additions to the lunch menu. It made me think about things though…

They say you need to do something for three weeks for it to become a habit. Well I’ve been at this for three months. Making my lunch in the morning before I leave for work is a habit. Not stopping at a convenience store to get junk food on the way to and from work is a habit. These are good things that I often focus on when I need to prove to myself that this diet thing is for the best.

Having said that, I was hoping part of the habit forming process would be the elimination of the desire to eat the junk food crap that put me in this position. That is not the case. Maybe I haven’t been at this long enough, but the temptation isn’t lessening. It’s getting stronger. Grocery shopping during the first few weeks of my diet was brutally difficult. My wife and I did it together for the most part, and that helped to keep me from cleaning out the Doritos section of the chips aisle. Now though, the pull to fill up a whole shopping cart with just chips is almost unbearable. Just like today when the pull to blow all of my money on Snickers bars from the candy machine in the kitchenette was all but unstoppable.

I don’t want to cheat. I don’t want to give in to temptation. I am proud of myself for sticking with this as long as I have, and I don’t want to ruin what progress I’ve made. But the urge to cheat, the urge to give in to temptation, is stronger than I would have ever dreamed.