I am notorious for not being able to turn down great-tasting foods.
If someone brings cookies or donuts to the gym, I am the biggest threat to their disappearance, with Coach John being a close second. Not only do I struggle to avoid them altogether, but once I start, I struggle to stop.
Some people are great at moderation. They can keep Oreos in the house and have “just three a day” and be totally fine.
For those people, it would be hard to say that three Oreos per day is the difference between being obese vs. having a toned physique.
That being said…
I still think it might make sense to try to avoid having some of those foods in the house.
Put yourself in an environment where it’s easier to succeed.
A quick example with real numbers
In my own life, I almost never have highly palatable foods (cookies, donuts, etc.) in my house.
But those foods do show up at the gym now and then. Let’s say that happens 1–2 times per month. Call it roughly 18–20 times per year.
So for me, I’m exposed to those “danger foods” maybe 18–20 times per year.
If I kept those same foods in my house all the time, I’d be exposed to them 365 days per year.
That means by simply not buying them for my house, I’ve reduced my exposure by about 95%.
Here’s what that looks like with Oreos:
- If I eat 3 Oreos every day:365 days × 3 Oreos = 1,095 Oreos per year
- If I only run into Oreos 20 times per year:To equal those same 1,095 Oreos, I’d have to eat about 55 Oreos every single time they show up.
That sounds ridiculous.
But that’s the point:
When foods are around you all the time, the small, daily exposures quietly add up.
Even if you’re someone who’s “good” at limiting portions, it still might make sense not to have certain foods easily available 365 days per year.
One of the easiest ways to get leaner
One of the simplest ways to get leaner and more toned is to reduce your overall calorie intake.
One of the simplest ways to reduce your calorie intake is to change your grocery list.
In other words:
Spend more of your food budget on foods that help you look and feel better, and less on foods that make it very easy to overeat.
That doesn’t mean you can never have treats.
It just means treats should probably show up occasionally, not live in your pantry full time.
“But someone else in the house wants them…”
This is a very common one.
A lot of people say, “My kids / spouse / family want the snacks, so I have to buy them.”
I wouldn’t suggest you strong-arm the people you live with into never buying anything fun ever again.
But if a certain food makes it much harder for you to stay on track, it might be worth having an honest conversation.
If it’s a food you don’t think you should be consuming on a daily basis, there’s also a good chance you’re doing what’s best for everyone else in the household by not purchasing it either.
There may even be a chance that nobody really notices that it’s not in the house anymore. Of course, you run the risk of that not being the case and having a child yelling that “there’s no food in the house.”
But it still might be worth canceling that item off the grocery list altogether, and you might be pleasantly surprised by how little the rest of the house notices.
Big picture
Personally, I am very confident that simply not buying certain foods over the years has helped me consume far fewer calories overall.
If I regularly bought things like peanut butter, Tastykakes, and Entenmann’s cookies, pretending I’d always keep it to “just a little,” I’d be eating a lot more total calories without even realizing it.
Your environment is always working on you.
If you make small, smart grocery decisions now, your willpower doesn’t have to work nearly as hard later.
Set up your food environment to do most of the heavy lifting.
Let me know if there’s a specific food on your normal grocery list that you have stopped purchasing OR one that has made an impactful addition.
– James Pratt