Candy bowl

Today is Monday and odds are, if you are anything like me, you have grazed all weekend.  Honestly, I am sick of my unhealthy habits of grazing the candy bowls looking for the next snack.  Unfortunately, the office candy dish is sabotaging my efforts to slim down and remain that way.  I have decided it is to make a declaration of war and end the battle with my midsection.

Some people believe that setting out little bowls of chocolates and mints builds esprit de corps in the office. It creates an opportunity to chat with co-workers who drop by. Then there are the folks who haul in cookies, birthday cakes, leftover holiday desserts and goodies from their kids’ school fund-raisers. Bosses, too, often keep the office candy dish stocked to pump up the staff.

Joker Candy Bowl

These bowls are filled with sweet treats such as little chocolates.  We allow these temptations, but yet we ban pastries such as doughnuts to another room.   Why do we segregate these items but keep the ones that are making so much damage right next to where we work. Each one of these babies is full of empty calories that put a dent in many of our colleague’s attempts to eat more healthy.

A bowl of candy on your desk may seem benign.  Coworkers tend to mingle around the jar, and you might even argue that they are a morale booster, but the only thing they are boosting is our waist circumference.   For some us, these little purveyors of sweets pose an even larger problem if we cannot resist their tempting little morsels.  Each mini candy bar has 30-50 calories.  If we assume that is 40 calories and we have two per work days, this would annualize this caloric consumption as 8.4 pounds or a pound every 43 days.

The bottom line: Let’s band together and remove candy bowls from the workplace.  Food cravings can quickly get out of control.  In fact, most of us eat more of these snack than we think we do and we are a poor judge of calorie content.