How to Stop Mindless Eating When Working from Home

If one of your vows for the New Year is to be more mindful of what you eat and to energize your body with food rather than zap your energy with junk food, you may think working at home offers an advantage.  After all, you don’t have to worry about treats in the break room or candy on a co-worker’s desk.  While this is true, working from home offers its own unique challenges when it comes to healthy eating.  However, with some simple strategies, you can learn how to stop mindless eating when working from home.

How to Stop Mindless Eating When Working from Home

Snacking when you work from home can be more of a problem because food is so readily available.  You’ll likely need to employ several strategies to keep the munchies at bay.

Keep the Treats Out of the House

The easiest solution is to keep the snacks that test your will power out of the house.  Whether that be chocolate or chips or cookies, just don’t buy those items at the grocery store.  If they’re not in your house, you can’t eat them.

Buy Goodies for the Kids that You Don’t Like

If your kids need snacks or chips for lunch, go ahead and buy them their treats, but buy ones that you don’t like.  Due to allergies, I can’t eat chocolate or corn, so the snacks I keep in the house for the kids are usually chocolate chip cookies and corn chips.  The kids love these foods, but I can’t eat them, so I’m not tempted.

Schedule in Regular Breaks

One of the reasons you may find yourself munching mindlessly is that you aren’t giving yourself enough breaks.  Sometimes, we feel guilty for taking a break because we have so much work to do.  But if we take a break to quickly eat something, we don’t feel as guilty because, we think, everyone has to eat, right?

Get rid of that mentality by giving yourself permission to take breaks.  You can have a regularly scheduled break as you would if you worked outside the home, or you can just give yourself permission to take a break when you get fatigued or hit a wall with your work.  Plan something fun for your break like calling a friend or reading a few pages in a book.

Get Moving

Getting regular exercise can help you minimize your need for junk food snacks.  When you find yourself wandering into the kitchen and mindlessly opening a cupboard, instead do a few jumping jacks or push ups.  You’ll break the mindlessness of your munching, and you’ll be doing something good for your body.

Final Thoughts

Now is the perfect time to make healthy changes in your life.  While working at home can present challenges when it comes to snacking, using these strategies, you can create a healthier lifestyle for the new year.  There’s no better time to start than now.

What strategies do you use to prevent mindless munching when you work from home?