This is an old article, but I found it interesting

https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/happiness-in-world/2013 03/alternative-willpower-losing-weight

"The key to resisting the temptation isn't willpower. It's distraction, avoidance, and acceptance. What follows below, then, is the 7-point plan..."

Very interesting article and I completely agree with much of it. When I started my journey almost 4 years ago, I decided to "study" myself. What made me always fail and what were my weaknesses. Instead of saying just food, I looked at when I ate the most, and how I was feeling. I realized that I was ravenous around 3 to 5pm in the evenings and would just snack snack snack. I started to chew sugar free gum then, eating ice, and taking my break at work to walk around the building. I created a new habit and still do it to this day. As a matter of fact, whenever I start to fall off the wagon, it's usually when I start putting snacks in my desk drawer and pulling them out around 3pm. Once I see that, I start to make changes again. I also read a book called the Power of Habit which helped me greatly in creating some newer healthier habits and recognizing that the old habits are always still there so you have to be really careful about them reintroducing themselves

We can change our habits, but we never discard them entirely. One of my #1 rules is that we can't remove something without replacing it.

The reality is we often develop bad habits as coping skills or for therapeutic reasons. The mind needs to have a job. Our brains need to be occupied and stimulated and we founder when we aren't. Often people develop poor habits as a response to this. The other reason we do, is to compensate for pain, grief, loss, anxiety, agitation, etc. In this case, it behooves us to recognize and acknowledge this, and proceed accordingly.

I also agree with distraction, avoidance, and acceptance - it's good to avoid addictive substances if we are prone to overusing them. However, we avoid our emotions at our peril.

It is when we sit with our pain, and anguish, and shame that we come to terms with it. That is the acceptance part, actually. The only way we accept things is by sitting with them.

This is a concept of Buddhism that often gets overlooked in modern counseling mindfulness, sadly. The real point of mindfulness is to sit with ourselves where we are at. Not to just focus on the moment - we have to live in it to be truly mindful. That means we embrace our depression and negative thoughts, thanking them for being there, before we redirect and move on.