A colleague of mine suggested a Skinny Jeans Program for home based business owners. This sounded like an excellent idea. When you work at home, the fridge can be WAY too close for comfort. Here are some ways to dampen the ghoulish “Fridge and Cupboard Raider” within. It escapes so easily, especially when no one is watching—no one except you that is.

Here are 5 Tips to Tame This Monster:

1. What to do when you’ve lost energy and concentration. When you are working at home, it’s easy to not get started and procrastinate. Then once you get started, you can’t stop working. You go into hyper-drive and may even forget to eat for hours. Then you realize you are unable to think any longer. You think, “Hey I’m hungry, maybe eating something will help get my brain working again.” Often, because your blood sugar has dipped too far, you may reach for some stimulating sugary item just to keep you going. Better not to miss meals, so you can keep steady energy all throughout you work day.
2. Feeling frustrated by some delay or a client not responding the way you had hoped. You automatically let your frustration take you to that box of cookies your son has stored nicely in the cupboard. You can’t help yourself and before you know it, you’ve eaten the whole box (and it was not even open before you came along). Not only is this one of the worse ways to gain weight quickly, you will also face a sugar dive in an hour or so after eating this box of cookies. To alleviate frustration, try leaving your office for awhile, go for a walk, go to the gym and avoid making a bee-line for nearest grocery store, fast-food restaurant, or to your fridge.
3. You find yourself disorganized and can’t find what you are looking for all day long, you wish you had help, and you wish this was easier. You want to quit thinking that this is harder than you expected. You are being hard on yourself and feeling hopeless. You ask, “Why don’t I get a job? What made me think I could be successful?” You’re at the end of your rope. Sound familiar? Well that’s when those cravings happen, attacks of anything carbohydrate—chocolate, candy, cakes, the potato chips—all of the forbidden foods. So remember, try to organize your day the night before. That always helps. You have a game plan as you go to bed at night and then you can start fresh in the morning by looking at this plan.
4. You’ve done a great job and sealed the deal. In celebration of your victory, you feel you should reward yourself with ice cream or a couple of drinks with friends. What you might do is reward yourself with a massage, a movie that you’ve been wanting to see, or for a really big win, perhaps an extended weekend getaway. The latter is somewhat of a delayed gratification; however, just knowing you will be doing something special like this for yourself may help you prevent overdoing it with food and alcohol.
5. Can’t get the creative ideas you are looking for, you may even feel uninspired, or even bored. You start frequenting the kitchen often. Any excuse will do. Even if you think that might not be the case. I would suggest, especially while working on intense and demanding projects and deadlines, to keep a food log or journal. You might be surprised. More often than not you end up snacking all day long. Worse, you have your snacks on your desk. Please avoid that temptation. Keep everything out of sight and out of mind as much as possible.

(c) Monika Klein, B.S., C.N. is an award winning clinical nutritionist and weight loss expert. Monika is the “Compassionate and Practical Nutrition and Lifestyle Coach.” Her company, Coaching For Health, offers life transforming weight loss and wellness programs, classes and products throughout the world. To learn more about Monika’s services and programs, visit www.coachingforhealth.com.