This is the kind of thing you can see in my break room at work on average a few times a week. The gesture is amazingly sweet. It is usually from PTO or other staff members as a way of showing appreciation for the hard work that goes into teaching the next generation and molding their precious lives. I do not intend to sound ungrateful to the gesture at all by this post, so I hope not to offend anyone. To be fair a lot of times there are some very healthy options too. However, I know personally I have struggled this past year walking into this room seeing all the deliciousness that is stored in there for everyone. And while a nibble here or there really is not too big of a deal it can knock someone off of her goals if she is not careful. Here are 5 tips to avoid slipping into a break room pitfall:
1.) Do not go in hungry. I know this is probably not an original idea, but obviously we need to keep hearing it because we keep doing it! We need to be eating breakfast, snack (not a break room snack), lunch, another snack, dinner and possibly another snack! All that eating there should never be a time when we walk into the break room hungry. We shouldn't even be hungry. We know this! So let's start doing this!
2) Avoid the break room. Unless you are there to eat a healthy meal or snack that you packed in, or the occasion when someone has supplied the room with healthy snacks, stay out. I can't tell you how many times I have walked by a table with donuts just like the ones above and couldn't do it without grabbing one. I could have just as easily not gone in there.
3.) Exercise. Seriously! If you are exercising and your program is challenging enough you are not going to want to put a doughnut in your body. You likely worked harder than you thought you could and aren't about to undo all that work with a doughnut. Then again, maybe you think you did all that work you deserve a doughnut? Remember this, you cannot out workout bad nutrition.
4.) Drink water! I do not know if there is science out there somewhere that supports this, but my personal experience is that if I am dehydrated at all I will crave simple carbohydrates and salt. I am fairly certain this is a pretty common occurrence among dehydrated people. Despite not having a study to prove it. Just think about what we do know. Salt causes people to retain water so it would only make sense that you would crave salty stuff so that your body could hold onto the little bit of water it has left.
5) My personal favorite is drink Shakeology in the morning. I cannot speak about the science on this I can really only give you my experience. Since I have begun doing this (and all the steps listed above aside from 2) I have been able to walk into the break room without any issue whatsoever. I think it's because I make good stuff with it that make it taste like a really awesome milk shake. I feel like I got desert first thing in the morning, but it's packed with nutrients and hit all my needs. So I really don't feel like I'm missing out on anything when I walk past a spread of doughnuts, chocolate cake, brownies, or anything like that.
What do you think? Have any of these worked for you? Do you have anything that isn't on this list that has worked for you?
