What to do when sweets are constantly at your workplace
I know this is true for me at my work;it's always someone's birthday or reason to bring in cake,cupcakes,cookies, and etc. When I have to continually walk past these items, and people are encouraging you to eat what they brought or made,it can ware you down. What are some strategies you all take to combat this struggle?
I had this at my old workplace and also here at my new place. At my old place, I just made a rule for myself that I just Do Not Snack at work. At all, ever. Even healthy ones. This means that it's just "my thing" that I don't snack. It's easier to say no to absolutely everything than to say no to some things, if you see what I mean?
It meant that people eventually just left me alone, stopped offering me things as much. When they do offer me things, my instant response is "no" because the answer to food everyone offers me is "no"
The problem I always had is the decision - "is this healthy?" "oooh, maybe I could have just one sweet" "wait, I probably shouldn't" *onwards to the guilt spiral*
If the answer is always no, then there's no decison.
@senesor holy crap! That is really smart! It's kind of like how you don't have any bad food in your house..you're taking yourself out of the battle by just those two magic letters n~o
@softFern50 I got the idea from some minimalism blogs that I was reading. The general idea was that you take stress out of your life by owning less things. So, like, you can't worry about what shoes to wear if you own 2 pairs of shoes. I figured I'd apply that to making decisions, lol.
@senesor
Wow, I love this idea so much! I've read a bit about simplifying decision making, in relation to clothes, for example, but I never thought of applying it to food. Brilliant!
@senesor Smart move
@softFern50
Hm.. few different things.
- Pick my battles. If there's food all the time this obviously might not work; but if it's a random birthday then you could say yes to this and no to something else.
- Compromise. I might say 'yes I'll have a piece' but then say no to something later.
- Say 'no'. I'm also always working on removing should from the dictionary - ie "I shouldn't have that". No means no and it doesn't have to come with guilt or shoulds or blame.
- Move the food away! The temptation comes from not just hearing that it's around but also seeing it. Whether it's putting it in a different room or even just a cloth over it. Sometimes I even walk around the office and share it around so that there's none left.
- Bring your own food. There's another comment about this so I guess I'm just echoing it here. But if you bring your own food make it tasty! I'm going to be much more likely to pick or have a piece of something if the food I'm bringing doesn't appeal to me at all.
It's long since I've replaced them with all sort of fresh fruits and dried fruit like dates, raisins and of course 70% and up dark chocolate. Ocasionally I will have a Lindor Irresistibly Smooth Extra Dark - like right now ;) Drinking never from concentrate juice instead of sugar packed soda or just plain water also works. ;)
