Office Snacks Can Be A Challenge For Dieter Focusing On Weight Goal Can Keep Munching At Bay

There’s the candy jar on the boss’s desk, the birthday cakes for office colleagues, doughnuts at morning meetings and the ubiquitous vending machine.

Girl Scout cookies are at every other desk; and, if high school bands sold carrot sticks, they’d all be marching around in the emperor’s new clothes. Instead, they sell candy bars. King-size ones.

Snack food is everywhere. Even if you avoid keeping it in the house because you’re apt to indulge too often, you’ll be bombarded with it at the office.

“It’s one of the common things people talk about when they come in for nutrition counseling,” says Dianne Fagan, a registered dietitian who practices in Niskayuna.

Lorraine Del Rosso, a nutritionist with offices in Clifton Park and Albany, agrees. She estimates that nearly 90 percent of her patients who work outside the home bring up the topic of snack food in the office.

But there are ways to combat the office calorie overload.

Stay satisfied

“What it comes down to is your desire to reach your goal versus your desire to have what’s in front of you,” says Fagan.

And to stem the desire, Del Rosso says to eat a well-balanced diet in the first place. “Once you’re in that hunger mode, it’s very difficult to pass up food. You’re body is telling you to eat anything.”

Eat breakfast at home

A lot of people say, “Oh, I’ll get something when I get to work,” and then they walk in and get slammed with a major project and a box of doughnuts, Fagan says. If you’ve eaten before you leave the house, you’ll be better prepared to skip the doughnuts and go straight to work.

If you simply can’t manage to get down breakfast before you begin working, stop at the grocery store and pick up some cereal and a pint of milk or take along a packet of instant oatmeal.

Circumvent the candy jar

This nutritional booby trap snares nearly everyone. “It’s part of the socialization of the office,” says Fagan, and even though it would be better for the whole office if it weren’t there, it’s a hard thing to get rid of.

If you find yourself sampling from the jar too often, take a different path, says Fagan. People tend to walk the same way through the office. Vary the route so you pass by the jar less often.

If you must munch on something, keep a bowl of seedless grapes, fat-free mini pretzels or cocktail tomatoes on your desk.

Ironically, even people who have “ownership” of candy jars admit having trouble with them. Fagan says for some of her clients, keeping a candy jar on their desks makes them part of the office in a unique or special way. But if you find you’re filling the jar with M&Ms just to eat them yourself, try candy that isn’t as easily eaten. Hard candy that’s difficult to just bite and swallow is better than things that can be eaten quickly. Buy hot, cinnamon-flavored candy or ones that require sucking for a long time such as Jolly Ranchers.

Sometimes, just communicating better with your co-workers can help. Fagan recalled one man who ate jelly beans all day because they were available and his assistants kept filling the jar. He didn’t want to ask them to stop because he was afraid of hurting their feelings and, as it turned out, they thought he wanted the jelly beans.

There are several ways to further the causes of your co-workers’ children, without indulging in band candy and cookies. First, you can simply not buy anything. Which, while more nutritious, could put you at a serious disadvantage when your children have to sell something. The next tactic is to promise yourself you’ll only buy an item if you can give it away to someone else. And finally, if you’re simply unable to resist eating any snack food that is in your possession, just donate money to the cause and leave the snacks alone.

Be a social person, not a social eater

It is acceptable to sing “Happy Birthday” and mingle and not eat cake. There are those who will thank you for leaving more for them. Suggest the office adopt a policy of having only one cake a month for everyone’s birthday instead of a cake for each person.

But, Fagan says, it’s more about your own willpower than about what foods others bring to the job.

“I think it’s hard,” says Fagan. “You’re surrounded by people that could care less about your diet. They’re not exactly the most supportive types to be around.”