I love peanut butter. And peanut butter has a love affair with me. 😉
While most of the time, I am able to have the willpower to say no to extra peanut butter, I would be lying if I didn’t share that I have had many times over the years where I am standing at the pantry with spoon in hand and dipping into one of the many jars of peanut butter.
I’ve always known the saying ‘“Out of sight, out of mind”, but never really experienced its full power until a few years ago as we were moving into a new house.
As mentioned, I LOVE peanut butter, so it was never a shock to see several jars of peanut butter in the pantry. In fact, I had some ‘hard-to-find’ jars of peanut butter, so I more or less had a display of peanut butter in my pantry.
And then I moved.
Now, moving into this new home, I had a big walk-in pantry, but also had these doors on the end of our kitchen island where I decided to store many of the ‘fat sources’ we use. Oils, nuts and peanut butter all in one place. These ‘end caps’ to the island were easily forgotten.
A few weeks passed, and I realized that I had not been dipping extra licks or tastes of peanut butter. In fact, I was no longer even thinking about peanut butter several times per day.
It was OUT OF SIGHT, OUT OF MIND.
I was actually pleasantly surprised by the unplanned experiment and decided that I could do the same with the pantry since it’s the place I would go to multiple times per day.
What I discovered a month later will blow your mind and its something you MUST do not just for yourself, but for your family.
In just one months time, my family’s consumption of something as simple as a granola bar was down by 70%! I knew this because every 2 weeks I would typically go to Costco and purchase the snacks. After the first 2 weeks, I was surprised to see I did not need to buy much of anything from the snack area. Then when 2 more weeks passed and ALL snacks were consumed less, I knew we were on to something that would be so helpful for all of us.
So what did I do in my pantry?
I strategically made it a point to hide the things that I wanted us to eat less of. The things that used to be at eye level (granola bars, fruit snacks, goldfish crackers) were all placed above eye level and behind other healthier options.
Within a couple of weeks, the family forgot about all of the snacks up above and behind other food items.
Stop relying on willpower in all of your decision-making. Create a stronger environment so you are not always needing to say no. Instead, make it more of a challenge or obstacle to get to the snacks and calorically dense foods you would like to enjoy less often.