Managing your Environment against Trigger Foods

Source

Here is a summary of my Weight Watchers meeting February 15, 2011.

Habit Guide: Manage Your Environment

Learn how to adopt healthy habits.
Keep healthy opportunities close. It helps your efforts when you fill your spaces—your house, your office, your car—with foods that make it easier for you to stay on track.

Managing Your Environment means...
Really looking at your environment: your car, kitchen or desk and remembering the four R's:

• Recognizing the foods that will help you (GREEN light foods)—and the ones that won't. (These are your red light and yellow light foods we discussed in the meeting room this week).
• Removing the items that you are sure will get in the way of your weight-loss efforts. (RED light foods)
• Replacing the foods you've removed with healthy ones like fruit and vegetables. Find a healthier substitute to keep you from getting off track.
• Rearranging your foods so that the healthiest choices are in eye sight, such as on the counter or the top shelf of the fridge.

Consider what changes you can make in your exercise environment that will help, such as tuning up your bike or simply getting out your exercise gear. Dust off that treadmill and stop using it for storage space.

Make it easier on yourself: Manage Your Environment
"Don't agonize. Organize." -Florence Kennedy.

We all have our "trigger" foods or places—the snacks and sweets which can destroy our willpower and make us forget all about those weight-loss plans.

But some of us do what we can to minimize our exposure to triggers; managing our environments so we're not always around foods that tempt us. And that makes sense: When the spaces that surround us—our fridge, pantry or car—are crammed with tempting foods, we'll be tempted by them. When it's right there, we'll eat it.

When we stock up on healthy alternatives, though, we'll make healthier choices. And suddenly, our environment is working for us.

Managing Your Environment is a helpful habit because:
• When you take charge of the foods that fill up the spaces that surround you, they'll stop having control over you. Fewer tempting foods = less temptation. Remember you can resist the temptation once at the grocery store, or bring it home and have to resist the temptation on a daily basis!
• Looking through those spaces and being able to recognize trigger foods is a great exercise: It means facing and naming your weaknesses, which can only make you stronger.
• Filling your environment with healthy foods is like studying hard for an exam: you're laying the groundwork for your future success.

If you don't make changes to the food that's around you, you’re still going to eat what's there—even if its unhealthy.

If you discover you need to Manage Your Environment...
Develop a plan to help you be successful. What needs to happen? What needs to change? How long has it been since you went through all of your cabinets/refrigerator/pantry and done some reorganizing? Do you still have leftovers from Valentine’s Day calling to you? What is going to have to happen at the grocery store? What food choices should end up in your buggy?

All of these questions are what you should ask yourself this week and every week in order to be successful!