How To Have Trigger Foods In The House Without Losing Control

There’s probably a food you don’t buy.

Maybe it’s ice cream… Maybe it’s chips… or the good chocolate. Or the cookies you like from the bakery. If it’s in your house, it feels like you can’t stop until it’s gone. So you just don’t bring it into the house.  

Keep it out of the house. Don’t buy it. Ask your family not to bring it in. 

Stop overeating that food by not letting yourself be near it.  It’s a very common approach and is advocated in a lot of different programs.

And honestly, it’s a reasonable option at the beginning. It can make things simpler when you’re first getting started.

But here the issue –  it doesn’t work long term and ultimately sets you up for failure. 

You Can Keep It Out Of Your House. You Can’t Keep It Out Of Your Life.

The “don’t bring it in the house” strategy only covers one room. Your kitchen.

It doesn’t help you at work when somebody brings in a tray of squares. Or at your friend’s place when she puts out the good chips. Or at the birthday party, or the restaurant when the dessert menu shows up.

At some point that food is going to show up somewhere you weren’t expecting it. And if the only way you’ve ever managed it is “don’t have it around,” then the minute it surprises you, you’ll likely feel out of control around it. And then (and here is the real shame) you’ll probably decide the problem is you and feel like you failed.

The problem isn’t you. 

It’s the approach you’ve been taught. It’s one dimensional and only helps in a small area of your day.  

Long term, what you need to learn is how to be around these foods and not be bothered by them. Not fighting them. Not white-knuckling past them. Just being around them and feeling relaxed and calm.

That’s a skill. And it can absolutely be learned.

I teach you how to do it in this blog post but also in this episode of the Thriving As A Physician podcast.  Click to listen to the whole episode.

Why You Finish It Like It Won’t Be There Tomorrow

This came from a question on a live Q&A call with my Thrive Academy for Overeating members. She said if there’s something she really loves in the house, she can’t just have a bit and leave the rest. She ends up finishing it. Almost like it won’t be there tomorrow — even though she could just go buy more.

That last part is the piece I want you to notice.

Her brain is treating that food like it’s running out. And scarcity drives overeating. That’s not a flaw in her, that’s just what brains do when they think something’s about to be gone.

Some of that scarcity is stuff you’re saying to yourself while you’re literally eating it. “I shouldn’t be doing this.” “This is the last time.” “I’m not having any more tomorrow.” Your brain hears all of that and gets as much as it can before the door shuts.

And some of it goes way back. If you grew up in a house where other people ate the good stuff quickly and you had to get there first or it was gone, that doesn’t switch off just because you’re an adult with your own kitchen.

These Foods Aren’t Actually Special

Here’s what’s true about most of the food we struggle with. It’s everywhere. And it’s usually pretty cheap.

If I really wanted chips at midnight tonight, I could pick up my phone and somebody would bring me as much as I want. I don’t even have to drive anymore. You could stock your house with cases of it if you decided to.

Now I know that might feel risky to read. (You might be thinking: if I had cases of it, I’d really lose control.)

I don’t think you would. Because if you had cases of it, it would stop being special, and it loses a lot of its magic.

Because a big chunk of that magic isn’t coming from the flavour or the actual eating experience at all. It’s coming from the idea of it. And a huge piece of that idea is that it’s limited in your life.

The Chocolate Cake Thing

Try this one. It works better than any explanation I can give you.

Say somebody told you that from now on, you can only eat chocolate cake. Three meals a day. And every couple of weeks, they’ll let you have a salad.

How long until chocolate cake is boring and you don’t even want it?

And what happens to that salad? The one you can’t have for another week, and you have to be careful not to have too much of it?

Even just typing that, my brain goes ugh, that’s so much chocolate cake. And a salad would be so nice.

Nothing about either food changed. Only the rules did. Which tells you the attraction isn’t built into the food itself. It’s how we’re talking about these foods, how we think about them, and how we interact with them.

Start With: “I Could Totally Have That”

So the food’s right there in front of you. What do you actually do?

You start by reminding yourself that you’re an adult, and you’re allowed to eat whatever you want. So: “that looks good, and I could totally have some.”

Now I know that might feel risky, especially if you’ve spent years telling yourself you can’t have this food or you have to be really careful around it.

But think about what usually happens. You see the food and you go “okay, I shouldn’t have that.” And it doesn’t sit well. It doesn’t feel good to be told we can’t have something — if it’s attractive and you get told no, it just makes you want it more. It also closes the door on any further thinking.

When you tell that piece of your brain yeah, you know what, we could totally have it — it calms down. And now you’ve got space to actually consider it.

Then you think down two paths. If I do have it, what does that look like — right now, in fifteen minutes, tomorrow? And if I don’t, what does that look like?

The Question That Makes It Low Stakes

Here’s the one I’d write on your hand:

“If I could truly have this food anytime I wanted, do I really want it now?”

That question is built carefully. Because another mistake we make is treating the decision like a contract. If I say no to the chips, I’m saying no to chips for the foreseeable future. And your brain pushes back — because you like chips, and that’s a big thing to commit to.

It’s not a contract. Say no now, and if five minutes from now you decide you do want some, you’re allowed. It brings the whole thing down to much lower stakes.

Most Of The Time It Doesn’t Taste That Good

Once you’re not rushing and you’re not fighting yourself, you start noticing what you’re actually eating.

Because for a lot of these foods, the actual eating experience doesn’t match our idea of it. We don’t pay attention while we’re eating, so the idea just overshadows the experience. It feels like it was amazing — but that’s the idea, not the food. Your idea of how it tastes is probably based on what it was like when you were a kid, or the most ideal version of it. The one you’re actually holding usually isn’t that one.

Slow down enough to notice and you’ll often go: “yeah, this is okay. It’s not amazing.”

And then it’s easy to say “yeah, I’m good, I don’t need any more.”

Notice how different that sounds. “I’m good” has a totally different energy from “I’ve had enough, I shouldn’t have more, I’ve hit my macros.” One’s calm. The other one’s hanging on.

What If You Do All This And Still Can’t Stop?

Sometimes you’ll do every bit of this and still feel out of control around the food. That’s worth paying attention to, not beating yourself up over.

Have a look at what else is going on. Am I bothered about something? Am I stressed? Was it a long day? Am I tired?

Because if you’re doing all of this and it’s still happening, usually there’s something else your brain is using that food for. Helping you feel less stressed. Giving you a break after a long day. Sometimes the eating that keeps going in the evening is honestly just putting off doing more work.

So get curious about that. Not critical. Curious.

This Takes Practice, And That’s Okay

It’s not going to be perfect. There will be times you overeat that food, and that’s fine — that’s probably normal. Is it normal to occasionally overindulge in certain things? Yes.

What we’re working towards isn’t never. It’s that when you do overdo it, it was a choice you made and you felt in control of it. We don’t want the food controlling us.

And I want to be clear about the feeling we’re going for, because it’s probably not the one you’re picturing. It’s not the food being in your house while you hang on going “nah, I can’t eat that.” That’s probably the feeling you’ve had before, and it’s exhausting.

What we’re going for is much quieter. It’s okay if it’s here, it just doesn’t bother me.

Chips were one of my biggest trigger foods. If there were chips in the house, I ate them, and they did not stay around. Now there are half-open bags sitting in my cupboard that I forget about until they go stale.

That’s not discipline or more willpower. I just built the skill.

And man, it’s powerful. Once you’ve got it you don’t have to worry about what other people are going to bring into your environment, because you know what to do with it. The food doesn’t decide how you feel anymore. You do.

I go through all of it in this week’s episode of the Thriving As A Physician Podcast. And honestly, listen more than once — this is a skill, and it takes practice.

Listen to the full episode below.