Cakes and Treats at Work

[WhatTheFlipToDo]

I have worked at my current work place for about a year. I have been consistently a size 12 in clothes for two decades yet I have put on over a stone in that time and size 14 clothes are getting tight. The only variable between this job and my last one is a permanently well stocked table of ‘treats’. So, biscuits, those little M&S tubs of cake bites, donuts, Rocky bars. You name it.

It is a job where you end up incredibly tired sometimes and I have little will power around chocolate at the best of times but when I'm tired it’s a million times worse. Essentially, I eat far more sweet things now due to this bloody table of junk food. Obviously, as I eat things I replace them but then I just eat them again. I don’t know what to do. I’d like to ask the team to save treats for an actual occasional treat but, simultaneously, if I’m the only one who has no will power, is it fair to request they adapt their behaviour for me?

I feel the views in this article sum up my own well. https://amp.theguardian.com/society/2023/jan/17/people-should-not-take-cakes-in-to-the-office-suggests-food-watchdog-chief

Am I being unreasonable to want the team to cut back on the treats so I don’t get even fatter or is this my problem to manage? Genuinely contemplating leaving as I just will not be able to manage my weight without a change in workplace culture.

Where I work, People bring boxes of biscuits, donut bags and home made cakes in and put them on the central table for people to help themselves.

Ive conditioned myself to say "those are not mine, they're not for me, they belong to other people", like hypnosis as I walk past.

I bring in a container of porridge which I put in the microwave at about 10am and by the time I've eaten it with a sliced up banana, I'm full up and don't feel the urge to

is that something you could do OP - it's like going to the supermarket, never go there if you're feeling hungry.

Add a bowl of fruit and vegetables to the snack table and only eat from those - one fruit and two vege per day.

Also, whenever you feel like eating DO something else.
Walk around the block, walk around the office, drink water, drink cup of unsweetened tea but only drink long black with milk coffee. We all drink so much more milk by consuming full milk cafe late etc. Keep a pack of low cal. wholemeal crackers at your desk too, and sugar free chewing gum while you are weaning off sugar..

Eat some protein and salad at every meal.

You're better off consuming the full fat milk than eating grains which are carbs & sugar.

Avoid sugar, fill up on proteins and heathy fats and your blood sugar won't dip and you won't crave dead carbs and sugary junk snacks.

Most people aren't eating proper breakfast, getting a blood sugar slump mid-morning, then reaching for the sugary coffee/snacks/carbs etc.

My workplace can be similar.
To give me the willpower to resist (which I always do) I have a small, high quality dark chocolate bar every day. I get them from Aldi and they are individually wrapped.
Knowing I can have a cup of tea and a little chocolate bar keeps me on the straight and narrow.

I used to work in a place like this. Every day they’d all make bagels and butter, constant snacks and treats. I found it easier to never indulge than ‘just have one’. Just having one makes it easier to have more. I’d bring in different fruits and other things instead. There was a constant pressure from colleagues to indulge too. Odd.
it’s definitely hard OP but you can’t impose your willpower issues on everyone else.

Oh and OP, I really get where you're coming from with this. I hate the abundance of this low grade junk shite when I'm at work. I really wish people wouldn't do it. If you're tired and having that 3pm slump, it's torture to resist sometimes.
In one workplace, a girl in my team used to bake and would regularly put a homemade (so granted, not junk) American style cupcake with mountains of frosting on everyone's desk - without asking first. I used to wrap mine in a napkin, put it in my lunchbox and bin it when I got home.

OP I feel your pain! I worked for most of my life in investment banking, where food was rarely brought in, since leaving there (I was 3 years in the NHS and now in a school) there has been a constant pile of sweets, chocolate, cakes, biscuits etc in the workplace. I recently realised I had put on a few pounds (after years of being the same weight), so the constant snacking has had to stop! I cut it back for a couple of weeks and this week had gone sugar free - it's tough, but not impossible! Good luck.

I agree

i am not addicted to sugar but alcohol. I couldn’t work I’m an environment which is centred around booze!

I think there’s a pretty unhealthy food culture in a lot of work places to be fair.

I started a new job a few years ago and it involves attending lots of training sessions (think 5/6 people sitting watching a woman talk her way through a flip chart all day 😴). 6m in I attended my first one and found out that the trainer was a major feeder 😳 she hands round tubs of jelly sweets, the m&s snack tubs etc ALL day during the session and made a massive deal of the fact I wasn’t taking any and i had “so much will power” compared to her and all the others 🙄
In actual fact, I’ve struggled with food my whole life so having that much attention placed on what I was/wasn’t eating was pretty triggering for me, especially infront of a bunch of strangers.

Secondly, I was in the early stages of pregnancy and sick as hell 🤣 nobody knew yet and there was only one toilet at the training place which was right at the side of the room we were in and you could hear everything so they’d all have heard me throwing up 😅 I was having to hold my breath every time she waved a bag of sweets under my nose and just shake my head 🤣🤣

YABU and I say this as someone with next to no self control when it comes to food.

You can only control your own behaviour, but I do know it’s really hard when tired. The only thing that helps me is in situations like this is food logging. Whether it’s calories or pictures or just writing down what I ate, just the action of logging makes me pause enough to reassess. Planning in your treats also helps.

It's a you problem, OP. We have lots of cakes and biscuits at work, I don't eat them, unless I want to. I'm not overweight.

OP it's so easily done! My advice would be

Replace some of the snacks with healthier choices / fruit / veg sticks and graze on them.
Completely abstain! It's easier than moderating and you won't crave them as much
Take breaks to walk during the day
Change where your desk is?

I feel for you and I believe work places should look out for their employee's health. It ends up becoming a a pressure to bring things in for the table in a weird sort of generosity competition.

I used to work somewhere that did this and the manager did tell people to stop as he was worried for some of the older people's health who might have been getting pre-diabetic.

Try reading a book like "ultra processed people" and it might turn you off. Every time you eat something track it in my fitness pal or nutracheck and the number of calories might shock you into stopping. Agree with another poster that repeatedly telling yourself that "you are not the kind of person who eats that rubbish" is beneficial. You need to become the person that says no. I think it's from Atomic Habits or some other self help book

I used to imagine the food crawling with germs and also imagined mice at it over night and that used to keep me away from it.

OP please ignore the 'you're a greedy pig lacking in willpower' brigade. Who cares what they do/eat ? Those treats are designed to be addictive and for you and millions of others they are.

You have a valid problem on your hands but unfortunately you can't get others to stop creating it. So you'll have to come up with your own coping strategies.

Experiment to find out what works for you with no judgment or self-laceration. Don't be hungry, have a healthy snack to hand that you genuinely like, indulge occasionally, have a sweet alternative... those are all options. I'm sure you can come up with others.

You've already taken the first step which is noticing what's going on. You'll beat this. But not by telling yourself 'to have more willpower'. That literally never works long term. Good luck!

You need to take in another option.
Sugarfree sweets from M&S are quite nice and tasty without sugar.
Is there a drink you especially like. I know this would also probaby have sugar in it but a couple of mouthfuls of a drink in a glass is less calorie than a mini roll. I like Belvoir Ginger Cordial whcih is probably full of sugar but I don't have much of it and it would give you that lift.

YABU to expect other people to change their behaviour because you can't stop eating treats. Its a terrible attitude, you need to work on yourself and there are some great suggestions on this thread.

Sugarfree sweets are full of absolute crap, including artificial sweetners. You're better off having something high quality made using actual sugar.

What @daisychain01 said! Just make up new rules for yourself (in your head), practise saying "no", have healthy back-up food you can have if you feel tempted - porridge is a good suggestion as it's filling and keeps you full for longer.
Tell your colleagues you're on a diet so they a) know not to encourage you and b) you won't be tempted as they all know you're on a diet.

We always have chocolates, sweets, cakes etc at work because we get loads of food gifts from patients. I normally grab a few chocolates throughout the day, other people don't have any at all if they're watching their diet. Honestly it would raise a lot of eyebrows and probably be ignored if one person started making a big fuss saying that chocolates shouldn't be there because they have no willpower.

But it would wean you off the sugar high. If you can cut out sugar for a while it reduces your craving. If you constantly feed it (even a little bit) you'll just want more,,,, and more.

As with previous posters, give yourself a 'no treats' policy (now I have cut out all chocolate and cakes etc, it's much easier to stick to than attempting sweets in moderation) and take something else to snack on. My favourite is sweet red grapes.

It really, really annoys me when people want to control other people instead of controlling themselves. I have to eat fucking leaves and fucking vegetables most of the fucking time because of thyroid issues, or else I'd turn into a blimp. There are no biscuits or cakes in my cupboards, because most of them would go stale and to waste at the rate I can eat them. I don't see why the choice to partake occasionally in someone's kind offer of treats should be taken off me because someone else chooses not to stop stuffing their face. Why should I be denied some more because they won't deny themselves at all?

I don't think you can ask an entire office to change their habit because you can't say no. I would be highly unimpressed if I was able to have self control- or didn't, and had the choice taken away because one person didn't want to take accountability and expected us all to.

Yabvu.

i would take lead and bring in strawberries
i also struggle to resist the chocolates/cakes but i have colleagues who do manage