Self-discipline it is not 17 asking that time honored question to which there is no known correct answer:‘ Do I look fat in this?’( The only advice I can give the hapless male caught in the crossfire of this question is to put your head down and run for your life. If you say‘ Yes’ you are in for it, and if you say‘ No’ you are not‘ being honest’, and if you hesitate you really mean‘ Yes’!) Often the trigger is moving up a clothing size or out another notch on the belt. But the problem is the same – these motivators are not there at the moment in which we are contemplating eating fattening food.( Of course when I say‘ contemplate,’ I recognize that much of the time I’ m talking about a decision process –‘ Do I eat this or don’ t I?’ – that is over in nanoseconds.) Without immediacy, none of the motivators that discourage over-eating have any power. Most problematic of all, as we will discuss in more detail later, our unconscious mind is there to prevent us from feeling pain. In this situation, our mind becomes our worst enemy as it very effectively prevents us from thinking about uncomfortable things like our high blood pressure or our diabetes at the very moment we are contemplating the chocolate brownie or the vintage cheese in front of us. On the other hand, when we eat we do have an experience that is immediate – pleasure! It might be the pure sensual pleasure of eating tasty food or, more often, it is the emotional pleasure of eating. This is the‘ quick party’ that we try to have by eating our favorite foods. Either way, it is immediate. It is an unfair fight between pleasure and pain. Pleasure always wins because it is armed with immediacy while the pain of being overweight is disarmed by being forgotten in the moment. We are particularly good at‘ forgetting’ the impact of immediate gratification on our long-term health. In Australia some years ago, a number of advertising companies were challenged to come up with an anti-smoking campaign for teenagers. Campaigns that focused on the longer-term health impacts of smoking had failed to impact on teenage smoking. Immediacy is the key. Knowing that all teenagers are immortal, the most effective advertisement did not even mention the serious health effects of