Need advice for willpower at work

[Jess55 97]

When people bring junk food into work, I seem to lose all willpower. Even if I eat it and my stomach says no. I obviously keep all junk out of the house for those reasons. But if is put in front of me I have problems. Today there were Cookies at work and i had more than i should have. Only thing good is i went to kickboxing after work, so hopefully i burned it off. Anyone have advice?

[CheckYes 46]

Pretend their dog licked it and that's why they brought it in. Works for me!

[NicVio 15]

Pretend their dog licked it and that's why they brought it in. Works for me!

I am ABSOLUTELY going to use that thought! Its perfect lol

[Jess55 97]

Lol, may not work as well for me, I'm a LVT who works in a veterinary hospital

[CheckYes 46]

Well, you know better than anything what dogs do with and put in their mouths!

[ElfiePoo 109]

If the Cookies are in the lunchroom or coffee room, I'd avoid that room.

.

[vlp1968 83]

Avoiding them physically (stay out of the room they are in) is a great idea. If they place them in a place you can't avoid, maybe you can ask they be placed somewhere else. I have read about using imagry to ward off temptation. Kind of like thinking the dog licked the treats. You could also think of chocolate chips as ants, or whatever works for you. For me, I would not eat any of the treat, a little just makes me want more. I would keep them off limits all together. Good luck!

[Jess55 97]

They are in the break, should I say alcove. I have to walk

Past that area all the time to go to the bathroom and get food/water for the animals. I'm going to try harder to just ignore it

[Kalipso2 25]

i understand your frustration. at work, thursday is donut day. i try really, really hard to avoid the kitchen on that day.

yesterday was thursday and i had a HORRIBLE day at work... i made a major mistake and i was really upset with myself. i walked into the kitchen, having forgotten it was thursday, only to have myself stop dead in my tracks and stare at the 4 boxes of donuts sitting on the counter.

i was stressed, upset, depressed and had a choice to make. eat the donut (or 2) and get even more angry and upset with myself or walk away.

i walked away.

was it easy? NO! but whenever you're tempted, stop for a minute and THINK about what you're about to do.

[Noturningback15 45]

I really believe that there are going to be days were no amount of willpower is going to keep you from those cookies! What you can do is to try to cut back on the rest of your calories for the day to make sure you don't go over and keep up with your kickboxing. I noticed that if I don't treat myself sometimes I will eventually go crazy and end up overdoing it the next time I do see some sweets. I may be wrong about the willpower thing but from what I noticed if most of us had willpower we would not need the band period. So, with that in mind keep everything in moderation. Oh, another thing I do is eat one or two and throw the rest in the trash. I am not a trash eater so once it goes in there it's no going back lol! I threw almost a whole box of cinnamon toast crunch away yesterday.

[Jess55 97]

I do cut back on my calories for the rest of the day, so even though I had a few I only went slightly over my usual calories. But I didn't like that I hat eaten so much fat. But I will move on.

[Jack 855]

For me the usual 'will power' simply wasn't effective....but I discovered that introducing a concept of 'WON'T power' somehow gave me the incentive to make better choices for eating and snacking.

As a 'serial/cereal snacker' my habit had long been to graze all day long in a private eating fest interrupted only periods of eating with other people at what was quaintly called 'meals'. 'WON'T power' gave me a tool to make empowered eating behavior decisions motivated by a higher degree of active and rational choice.

Will power did not provide anything but continued sense of inept failure and uncontrollable eating. Perhaps only a word game, yet it helps me every day, as in :I WON'T eat that stuff the dog licked...HAR!!!

[Amanda1982 142]

Try thinking about what you are feeling at that moment, do you really want the Cookies or is something else going on? Is it around 2 or 3 o'clock and your getting that tired feeling. Is it a slow day and you're bored, or are you worried about a meeting or a talk you have with your boss later. You said you have to walk past that alcove when you go to the bathroom is there another bathroom you can go to? Try taking a second and figure out what you are feeling when you want the cookies. Remember giving in to your temptations is not the end of the world. If you find your self eating 3 cookies this time, maybe you can convince yourself to be satisfied with 2 next time. 1 the time after soon you wont need any. Good Luck.

[honk 780]

Try keep a couple different flavors of gum in your desk so you have a choice of flavor. Hard to eat and chew gum at the same time.

[Wheetsin 714]

I always just have a cookie. A cookie. If I see something that looks appealing and ti's a will power struggle, usually I just get to the point where I'm craving it and if I crave, I overeat. So I will usually find someone to split a cookie with, or just take half of one. Since you can't really change your level of willpower quickly, it's all about "in the moment" fixes, IMO.