At various points along the weight-loss continuum it’s a great idea to clean your home, office, car, freezer, and hidden nooks and crannies of junk foods stashed away. It’s better to remove temptation, especially early on, than to see if you have the willpower to forgo the junk. Don’t test your willpower. Control your environment. It works better.
Even if you do this at the start you’ll need to do it again about every two weeks. Why? Three words: junk food creep. I just call it “creeping.”
What the heck is creeping? The junk habits and the junk food you’ve been so used to eating have a way of “creeping” back into your life.
One version of creeping goes like this.
For a solid week you didn’t buy a single junk or trigger food but then, on one of your trips to the grocery, you bought the box, bottle, bag or can “for someone else in your family.” Uh huh. And the next thing you know the junk is BACK in the house or car or office.
A second version is a little more insidious. You went to drinking nothing but water for eight straight days but then, one day you were extra tired heading into work, and you “somehow” swung into the drive-thru at Starbucks and got a tall nonfat caramel machiato (nonfat because you’re “dieting” after all). As a former regular-visitor, first-name-basis patron of Starbucks this little “pick me up” really hit the spot. The next thing you know you’re swinging into the drive-thru again the next day. I mean, come on, it’s only 150 calories. You’ll make up for it later with 15 extra minutes on the treadmill. Uh huh. On day two you notice you’re tired in the afternoon and you grab a diet Mountain Dew like you had done for years before.
And about as creepy as the scene in Poltergeist II
is where the little girl says “They’re back” we’re OFF to the races! The junk habits and junk foods are now back in your “diet.” And I’m using the word DIET on purpose and I always do anytime I’m referring to something undesirable, bad or wrong relating to food and food behaviors.
A third version of creeping is when you log a meal of 4oz of chicken breast, 2 cups of green beans and 1 cup of strawberries but end up eating 6oz of chicken breast, 2 cups of green beans, three bites of your kids or partner’s potatoes and 1 cup of strawberries. Oops, no big deal right? I mean, all the foods are healthy right? And what will 2 extra ounces of chicken and a few bites of potatoes do at one little meal? God I almost have to laugh even typing that ridiculous but common thinking.
Will you go back to your food logs and correct the error? You will if you want to achieve your goal and you won’t if you’re like 80 percent of people who consume the additional licks, bites, tastes and sips but never account for them and appear dazed and confused when their weight loss stalls.
After a few days of partaking in any one or combination of the three versions of creeping OR your own special blend of creeping the weight has by golly stalled. Hmmm, metabolism must have stopped. Uh no. Maybe the program just doesn’t work for you. Wrong again. Maybe you need to increase the incline on your treadmill from 1 degree to 2 degrees and walk for an extra 15 minutes each time. Sorry, not even close.
What needs to happen is you have to be on the lookout for creeping junk habits and creeping junk food and reel things back in. Watch for habits creeping back in that got you into trouble in the first place. Successful weight loss and weight management requires constant self-monitoring and course correction.
Creeping occurs in the most insidious, sneaky ways. A part of being hypervigilant and successful with weight loss and weight maintenance is being on the lookout for it.
Every two weeks I recommend you do another pass through the house, car and office and see what little transformation food mines have crept back in. Throw them away again and get your new, healthy habits back in line again too.
Leanness Lifestyle University
