Help! I work in a candy store... :/
Alphreia
Posts: 85 Member
I haven't come back to MFP in a while, because of life getting in the way, but I'm currently seeing pretty terrible side-effects to one of the best things that's happened to me lately.
Four months ago, I got the best retail job ever: I hold a shop alone on evenings, selling candy to overwhelmingly happy customers.
Only problem is... Steep discounts on everything in the store, and I can eat anything from the bulk bins on my shifts.
It's the biggest temptation ever, and I'm seeing the consequences in my waistline.
I haven't kept candy in my apartment since, well, my last attempt at weight loss (at least some good habit came out of it), but I can't exactly follow the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality while at work, and I don't know what to do.
So far I've set myself a rule to never buy anything at work, and that holds up pretty well.
The bulk candy, though, I don't have the strength to resist.
Any ideas?
Four months ago, I got the best retail job ever: I hold a shop alone on evenings, selling candy to overwhelmingly happy customers.
Only problem is... Steep discounts on everything in the store, and I can eat anything from the bulk bins on my shifts.
It's the biggest temptation ever, and I'm seeing the consequences in my waistline.
I haven't kept candy in my apartment since, well, my last attempt at weight loss (at least some good habit came out of it), but I can't exactly follow the "out of sight, out of mind" mentality while at work, and I don't know what to do.
So far I've set myself a rule to never buy anything at work, and that holds up pretty well.
The bulk candy, though, I don't have the strength to resist.
Any ideas?
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Replies
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Would it work to determine how many calories in candy you would like to eat and stick to that? I find "some" to be much easier to implement than "none."0
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I would suggest trying to make sure you eat/bring enough food to not get hungry at work to reduce the temptation to eat a bunch of candy. Then try to create some space in your calories each day for one measured indulgence from the bulk bins. That way eating the candy isn't forbidden but restrained.0
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janejellyroll wrote: »Would it work to determine how many calories in candy you would like to eat and stick to that? I find "some" to be much easier to implement than "none."
Yes, maybe you can budget a certain amount of candy calories each shift. Then each night you go to work you make your choice for the night - maybe you wait until the end of the shift to actually eat it?0 -
Every time you want a candy you could take a drink of water (don't get sick from too much too fast) or eat a carrot maybe. You can also make yourself little goals, like "can I get to my break with no candy?" or "no candy until an old lady customer with huge purse comes in".
Good luck! Stay strong!0 -
I made a rule about food that's not mine. If I didn't pay for it, its not a temptation. Might not work if you can't manage not to purchase it at some point, but when I worked retail we weren't allowed to ring ourselves up so if you're working alone... Perhaps this trick could work for you. You can't browse the bulk bins because you didn't pay for it.
I am always welcome to food in the house at work, I'm a nanny and they tell me all the time to help myself to banana bread baked fresh that morning, or cookies from a party, or whatever. I'm with it all day but I don't indulge. It's a lot easier to just say no.0 -
I hear you. I had a very similar sounding job about 10 years ago. Worked in a small locally owned candy shop in the evenings, mostly just me and maybe one other person. Friendly customers. We were encouraged to eat as much of the bulk chocolates as we wanted, that way we could answer customer questions intelligently, or something.
It was a great job and I only left because I moved to a different state. I worked there for one year and gained 20 pounds. As you can see I have no good advice to offer beyond what everyone else has, as I never did figure out how to not eat all the candy. Good luck!0 -
Hopefully it will lose its novelty soon enough.0
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I made a rule about food that's not mine. If I didn't pay for it, its not a temptation. Might not work if you can't manage not to purchase it at some point, but when I worked retail we weren't allowed to ring ourselves up so if you're working alone... Perhaps this trick could work for you. You can't browse the bulk bins because you didn't pay for it.
I am always welcome to food in the house at work, I'm a nanny and they tell me all the time to help myself to banana bread baked fresh that morning, or cookies from a party, or whatever. I'm with it all day but I don't indulge. It's a lot easier to just say no.
I think this is good advice. If you struggle to limit yourself not having that first piece might be the best way to handle the situation for now.
Mind you it's easy to identify the right course of action but harder to follow it through. As a Brit who has never visited the US (where I assume you live), I was only very recently introduced to Reese's and those peppermint patty things. Oh my God they are amazing.
Not as good as our Cadbury's, but a strong effort all the same
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I think this is good advice. If you struggle to limit yourself not having that first piece might be the best way to handle the situation for now.
Mind you it's easy to identify the right course of action but harder to follow it through. As a Brit who has never visited the US (where I assume you live), I was only very recently introduced to Reese's and those peppermint patty things. Oh my God they are amazing.
Not as good as our Cadbury's, but a strong effort all the same
Is Cadbury's in the UK the same recipe as in NZ? Because I was never a fan. Whittaker's on the other hand. Oh god. I shudder to think how much weight I gained just because of that alone.
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I can relate. I used to work at a bakery as a cake decorator. We are allowed to eat cake scraps, doughnuts, cookies...it was awful. Cake is already a weakness of mine, and free cake? Oh my gosh! But, I also noticed some days I was not as inclined to reach for it, especially the longer I worked there, because I was starting to get tired of it. Maybe that will happen to you too. In fact, since I quit that bakery, I haven't eaten there since, and it was 7 years ago.0
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I gained a lot of weight when I first started working in a cafe. We were allowed as much free coffee or tea as we wanted. So, naturally, I would make myself the most disgustingly sugar laden coffee first thing every morning. And also all of our cabinet food that didn't sell during the day was up for grabs for us to take home.
Eventually it became easier to resist when I got sick of all of the offerings. I am not sure I would be able to resist unlimited candy though. Maybe you could bring a healthy snack with you to work and eat a bit every time the temptation becomes too great?0 -
Honestly for me, seeing children and adults stick their dirty hands in the bin would deter me.0
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Four months ago, I got the best retail job ever: I hold a shop alone on evenings, selling candy to overwhelmingly happy customers.
Only problem is... Steep discounts on everything in the store, and I can eat anything from the bulk bins on my shifts.
?
OMG I'm so jealous, sorry I have no words of wisdom. You truly do have the best job0 -
So, knowing you have major trouble moderating candy consumption you got a job at a candy store and 4 months later see the problem? Sigh.
Assuming you are not going to change jobs, flat out decide on how much you can consume each day in advance and still stick to your calorie goal. Put it aside in a bag or box. Eat out of that container only. Do not eat out of bins. View the rest of the candy as for you to sell not for you to eat. Don't bring extra money with you.0 -
Change jobs??0
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DaisyHamilton wrote: »Honestly for me, seeing children and adults stick their dirty hands in the bin would deter me.
LOL! That's what I was thinking. "Bulk bins? Where people are always putting their hands?" That would not be a problem for me.0 -
I think this is good advice. If you struggle to limit yourself not having that first piece might be the best way to handle the situation for now.
Mind you it's easy to identify the right course of action but harder to follow it through. As a Brit who has never visited the US (where I assume you live), I was only very recently introduced to Reese's and those peppermint patty things. Oh my God they are amazing.
Not as good as our Cadbury's, but a strong effort all the same
Is Cadbury's in the UK the same recipe as in NZ? Because I was never a fan. Whittaker's on the other hand. Oh god. I shudder to think how much weight I gained just because of that alone.
Not a clue - I know the recipe changed recently and there were a few complaints over here. I think I will always love Cadbury's the most because it reminds me of my childhood.
I'm going to have to find out what Whittaker's chocolate is now, and if it leads to weight gain I'm afraid I will hold you responsible.0 -
JeepHair77 wrote: »DaisyHamilton wrote: »Honestly for me, seeing children and adults stick their dirty hands in the bin would deter me.
LOL! That's what I was thinking. "Bulk bins? Where people are always putting their hands?" That would not be a problem for me.
See, that should put me off but I can't honestly say it would.
I'm like the opposite of a germaphobe.0 -
I worked for Cinnabon for a summer way back in the day. People asked me how I managed to not eat myself to 2000lbs on Cinnabons. Truth is I never tried one and never really wanted to and to this day, have never had one. I think my first or second day there, there I saw the nutritional information on the wall. The pecan caramel Cinnabon was about 1200 calories. OK, even back then before I was seriously dieting and calorie counting, I knew that was absolutely ridiculous. They were just so over the top, they weren't tempting to me at all. I didn't even see them as food, I think, just a thing I needed to avoid putting in my mouth like the plague.0
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jennylovestoeat wrote: »Every time you want a candy you could take a drink of water (don't get sick from too much too fast) or eat a carrot maybe. You can also make yourself little goals, like "can I get to my break with no candy?" or "no candy until an old lady customer with huge purse comes in".
Good luck! Stay strong!
I LOVE THIS! Make it into a game, where you can have candy if a very specific rule is met - and then portion out the candy so the reward is small enough not to cut into your calories too much.0 -
So, knowing you have major trouble moderating candy consumption you got a job at a candy store and 4 months later see the problem? Sigh.
Assuming you are not going to change jobs, flat out decide on how much you can consume each day in advance and still stick to your calorie goal. Put it aside in a bag or box. Eat out of that container only. Do not eat out of bins. View the rest of the candy as for you to sell not for you to eat. Don't bring extra money with you.
Ya, I interviewed at a company that marketed chocolate and decided working there would be a majorly bad idea.0 -
So, knowing you have major trouble moderating candy consumption you got a job at a candy store and 4 months later see the problem? Sigh.
Assuming you are not going to change jobs, flat out decide on how much you can consume each day in advance and still stick to your calorie goal. Put it aside in a bag or box. Eat out of that container only. Do not eat out of bins. View the rest of the candy as for you to sell not for you to eat. Don't bring extra money with you.
I took my job at a candy store because at the time, it was the only job I could find. Better to be around temptation all day than to be unemployed. If she likes her job, which she sounds like she does, or even if it's just her only option right now, don't you think trying to come up with strategies to make it work is a better idea than just quitting the job altogether? At least until something better comes along?0 -
When I read the title of your post, I thought "Aww man.. that.. that's seriously tough" and I stick by it. Firstly, please ignore the posts on there that tell you to change your job. I can tell from your original post that you love your job, and if you find a job you love, stay there. Some people may not understand this, because they've never felt passionate about working somewhere.
A couple of people have made some good points: kids touching the sweets being the one that really sticks out!
However, in my opinion, I think you'll get sick of the sweets.
When I was younger I worked in a bakery. My mother would often ask me to bring things back for her and my two younger brothers.
After a couple of months, however, I realised I couldn't really smell the food in the bakery as much. I was slowly going off the food, because I was smelling it every day. You just stop wanting it.
It's also like people who work in the Cadbury factories. When asked how they can work surrounded by the constant smell of melted chocolate, they responded "What smell?"0 -
crumbtinies wrote: »So, knowing you have major trouble moderating candy consumption you got a job at a candy store and 4 months later see the problem? Sigh.
Assuming you are not going to change jobs, flat out decide on how much you can consume each day in advance and still stick to your calorie goal. Put it aside in a bag or box. Eat out of that container only. Do not eat out of bins. View the rest of the candy as for you to sell not for you to eat. Don't bring extra money with you.
I took my job at a candy store because at the time, it was the only job I could find. Better to be around temptation all day than to be unemployed. If she likes her job, which she sounds like she does, or even if it's just her only option right now, don't you think trying to come up with strategies to make it work is a better idea than just quitting the job altogether? At least until something better comes along?
I'm a nurse case manager and work in a hospital. Every day I have vendors coming in to give us cookies, bagels (my personal Waterloo), and taking us out for lunch. Even when that doesn't occur, there's birthday cake, little goodies baked by other nurses, etc.
What I'm trying to say is, OP could quit her job in the candy store today and take a job in an office and still have temptation around her all of the time. Better to keep the job she has and likes than try to avoid temptation because she can't. OP, decide the amount of calories you can afford after hitting your macros and plan your treats around that. Eating carrots and drinking water never helped me, either, btw, because if I want chocolate, d*mn it, I want chocolate and nothing else will do!
I ended up eating carrots then eating the [insert craving here] anyway, so that was more calories than just eating what I was craving.
I worked in a doughnut shop while working my way through college. I don't crave doughnuts anymore.0 -
I worked as a barista in college and the novelty of all of the high calorie options wore off after a while. I would let myself have a low calorie drink and convinced myself the fancy drinks weren't really that awesome.
To this day I drink plain tiny lattes, shots of espresso, or black coffee and am kind of a terrible coffee snob. But because being snobby has saved me from so many calories in the years since, I just don't care.
I say stick with it and see if you can find a way to convince yourself that the bulk bin candy isn't actually that awesome. You might get some pretty good coping skills out of the experience. You might get turned off of candy for life. (Ask someone who worked at a movie theater how they feel about the smell of the popcorn.) If you can't figure it out after a while, you may want to look for a different job.0 -
thats gotta be hell, looking at all the sweets and not being able to eat them.....0
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jennylovestoeat wrote: »Every time you want a candy you could take a drink of water (don't get sick from too much too fast) or eat a carrot maybe. You can also make yourself little goals, like "can I get to my break with no candy?" or "no candy until an old lady customer with huge purse comes in".
Good luck! Stay strong!
I really like this idea, actually. I'm the kind of person who thrives with gamification, so that just might do the trick. ^^
Thanks everyone! And to those saying I should quit or change jobs... Nah, I'll stick with the job I look forward to every day, even if some aspects of it are challenging to my willpower/setting back my goals. 0 -
Chew gum while you work (if you're allowed to that is) or drink a hot tea, coffee or diet pop.
For me, I find that strong mint gum helps ward off those cravings and temptations.0 -
Aversion therapy: stick a bunch of masking tape to your arm hair, and every time you put candy in your mouth RIP ONE OFF!!! Lol. Kidding mostly.0
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