1. Weight Loss: Tipping the Scales in Your Favor

142. How to Turn Your Cookie Jar into an Activities Director

Has your cookie jar always been a source of temptation? Does the urge for a snack send you to the goodie stash on top of the refrigerator or in the kitchen cupboard? Don’t get rid of the cookie jar, just get rid of the cookies and use the jar to store reminders of things you can do besides eat. On separate slips of paper, jot down tasks you would like to do or activities you’d enjoy. Be very specific, and stick to tasks which can be completed in 5 to 20 minutes. That rules out things like “Read War and Peace,” of course. But you could include “Read five pages of War and Peace.”

Following is a brief list of hypothetical examples to give you ideas.

1. •“Call Aunt Marge from bedroom phone.” (Stay out of that kitchen!)
   

2. •“Get rid of three items of clutter.”
   

3. •“Call Tom to schedule an exercise ‘date’.”
   

4. •“Manicure nails.”
   

Write down as many tasks as you can, one per slip of paper. Then fold each slip and put them in your cookie jar. Next time the urge to snack hits, go raid your cookie jar.