In speaking with my clients trying to lose weight, it’s amazing how many of them work in offices where it’s standard fare to have an “Office Candy Dish”. Or, they keep dishes of candy in their homes for the “Unexpected Guest”. Through their food logs, I have found that some of my clients may be taking in 300-400 calories (or more!) from dipping into the candy dish throughout the day. You cannot lose weight taking in this amount of refined sugar! Worst of all, this is unconscious eating; unecessary, unsatisfying, numbing, habitual. This is dangerous territory for all of us, as many recent research studies have shown.
Happily, these studies have also shown that there are some small steps you can take to decrease your candy intake. Some examples are: put a cover on the candy dish, use opaque rather than clear bowls, and move the bowl away and out of sight from your desk. These steps can make a huge difference, cutting candy intake almost in half. However, personally, I just advocate getting rid of the dish entirely. Daily sweets are unnecessary, not healthy for us and can cause illness and disease, not to mention decreased work productivity. Someone has to step up to the plate and make the suggestion. Why not you? Let’s make the office candy dish a thing of the past!