QUOTE : In another test of the wills of young female dieters, each one was tempted by a bowl brimming with M&M’s that was placed in the screening room with her as she watched a nature documentary (a nontearjerker about bighorn sheep). For some of the women, the bowl was placed nearby, within easy reach, so they had to continually resist the temptation. For other women, the candy bowl was placed on the other side of the room and hence was easier to resist. Later, in a separate room with no food in sight, the women were given impossible puzzles to solve, that standard lab test of self-control. The dieters who had sat within arm’s reach of the M&M’s gave up sooner on the puzzles, demonstrating that their willpower had been depleted by the effort of resisting temptation. Clearly, if you’re a dieter who doesn’t want to lose self-control, you shouldn’t spend a lot of time sitting right next to a bowl of M&M’s. Even if you resist those obvious temptations, you’ll deplete your willpower and be prone to overeating other foods later.