Advice on how to stop picking/grazing?
 

Hi everyone,

I was just wondering how everyone here dealt with the temptation to graze all the time? For me, its consistently one of my biggest issues with losing weight, and its driving me crazy!

For me, it comes down to carbs. If I'm staying away from the refined carbs (i.e. bread and sugar) I have no trouble keeping the calories down, but once I start eating bread, all the cravings start creeping back. We had a terrible stomach virus come through our house and while recovering I went back on crackers then toast, then bagels, and now everything. For me, there's a three day transition off carbs ("the low carb flu") that I don't really have the luxury of going through between now and Christmas. But once Christmas is over, I'll be back off the carbs and I know the cravings will go right to the curb. Give it a try. It works for me - of course, your mileage may vary.

When I find myself opening the cupboards/fridge between meals, I try to stop and ask myself if I'm really hungry. And if I am actually hungry, I try to pick something healthy to snack on, like an apple or some peanut butter and celery. If I'm not, I just tell myself out loud that I'm not hungry, I'm just bored, and I find something to alleviate the boredom.

I pre-plan my days and basically follow a schedule. I sometime swap meals/snacks for other things or skip foods on my log, but in general it helps.

Can you do anything to make the food you are grazing on less accessible? If it's food you don't need to have in the house, try not to let it in the door in the first place. If the food needs to be there for other folks to eat, try putting it in special cabinets/shelves in the fridge. Try to think of it as "their" food. You might be able to swap out your current grazing foods for foods that you are willing to incorporate as regular snacks in your way of eating. If so, make sure those are in sight and easy for you to access. I really like grape tomotoes, for example, so I used to leave a pint of those on the kitchen counter and they became my go-to snack. Since then, I've adopted an IF way of eating (one meal a day, aside from my coffee lattes with frothed NFPM throughout the day) and I just stay out of the kitchen entirely (lucky for me I don't need to do any cooking as that is now hubby's job).

I don't enjoy snacking, it messes up my whole day and I don't like to think about food between meals. I make sure that my meals are filling, and usually eat to between a 7-8 on the hunger scale. I usually eat 2 meals a day.

I have stopped buying my normal low carb snack food. I was starting to feel that it was OK to snack as long as the food was low carb, but that's not the answer. Grazing has always been my downfall, too, and I have to be constantly watchful. It's really just a habit, not from hunger, and habits can be changed with diligence.

Good luck to you with this!

Its great to know some different ways to approach it. I've found not having a snack during the afternoon leads me to overeat at dinner, but I agree its usually the case whenever I have overly-processed or sugary foods around that I graze mindlessly. Self-discipline won't be a great strength of mine until I get myself back in the habit of not craving these 'danger' foods, so its probably best to just stop buying them altogether like a few of you have suggested.

I'm staying at my partner's parents place for Christmas, and unfortunately they are very big on all things carb-loaded and sweet, despite being built like sticks, so the next couple of weeks will be challenging haha

Thanks everyone for all your help :)