Overweight • 47 exception. I refer to exceptions as joy eats. When I first started teaching this material I suggested a joy eat once a week. I had many clients who became too restrictive and afraid of food and would then end up binging on it later. One of the ways I help counteract this tendency is with planned joy eating. So if this sounds anything like you, you want to make sure that you plan exceptions and then follow through no matter how nervous it might make you. You don't want to be afraid of food and you don't want to have overdesire, you want to eliminate it. The best way I have developed to eat food that isn't on protocol is by using a tedious, powerful worksheet and eating the food alone. We tell ourselves the story that food is so delicious when really it's the dopamine When you truly pay attention and taste your food, you will have a very different experience than when you eat it in a distracted state.