[Floridachick]

I'm new here and it's great to know that you ladies are having so much success without any particular diet which is my plan, not to diet and hopefully with success. I work in retail/specialty coffee industry and just wanted to know if anyone faces food challenges at work and how they deal with it. Thanks to all.

[April_Showers]

Welcome Floridachick!!

Glad you are here! You don't need to work in just the food industry to have scary food situations. I work in investments and all of the skinny people bring in gormet chocolates, homemade cookies, ice cream cakes, and I am not sure how but dozens of girl scout cookies have made there way past my desk. To insure that I don't give in, I always bring my lunch to work and have a stock of good healthy snacks in the fridge or in my desk.

*Soy crisps take away my need for a chip or a cracker
*Fresh strawberries and grapes take away the sweet craviings
*I also have those 40 calorie fudge pops in the freezers people think I am weird but I will do anything to avoid a 150 calorie cookie.

Good luck!

[happydaisy]

I'm a nurse and nurses in general are notorious for having tons of crappy food at the nurse's station, given to them by drug reps, patients families etc... On any given night there are pizzas, cookies etc. I won't lie, it's hard to resist sometimes. My solutions are: I always work out BEFORE work. This makes it easier to resist; I don't want to blow my workout, plus it eliminates the "too tired" excuse. I eat something before getting there, and I bring a healthy meal so I'm not tempted to order out. I try to avoid the area where the sweets/etc are, which could be hard for you since you work with it all day. Ultimately, most of the time, I decide my goals are more important to me than the taste of food. If it's something I really, really want I eat a small portion and then have some ice breakers gum and drink tons of water. Noting tastes good with minty gum in your mouth. Good luck, I feel for you. It sure isn't easy...

[kms7z]

i second all that-- make sure you are well fed or have healthy food options on hand so you do not HAVE to eat the crap at work.

and remember that just becuase it is there does not mean you should eat it! let someone else rescue it from going bad/stale/moldy etc.

i sometimes have to take a strict approach and ONLY eat the food i bring. that way if there are brownies i won't be tempted.

also, if you get a discount and feel like you need to use it, get a skim latte or a sugarfree drink. stick to the healthier choices.

hope this helps.

[rosiek2277]

The really cool thing about my job is that the 4 people I share an office with are all on diets so we are all watching out for eachother. The bad thing is that when one of us wants to cheat it's so easy to convice eachother to go along!

[Floridachick]

Thank you ladies for your great advice. I think that working out before work is a great idea but sometimes I have to be there at 5 am to open up and the gym just doesn't open that early, on these days I go after work. I usually leave a box of cereal at work so I manage to eat a healthy breakfast, my downfall is forgetting to bring lunch and I always find myself starving for something to eat and ofcourse there is always a broken pastry or whatnot laying around so a little bite to tie me over turns into eating about half the thing and lunch on top of it, extra calories = extra pounds. I need to start bringing more food with me to work to cut my temptations down. I do get to drink all the coffee I want while I'm at work, however, I'm very good about using skim or soy milk and no sugar syrups. You all are truly an inspiration