It's not clear that they is advocating 'half measures'. They is advocating changing one thing at a time. That could mean to only eating chocolate on the weekends, or to stop eating chocolate entirely - both of these measures are just changing one thing. I've had success just cutting out one thing at a time - instead of cutting out snacks entirely, I've cut out sweet snacks. Not salty snacks, just sweet snacks. This, in a way, "removed the stimulus entirely", because I find craving for sweets and salty/fatty stuff to be more or less distinct cravings. Now after I stopped having sweet cravings, I cut out salty/fatty snacks, and then I would hardly ever get cravings for chips and such.