Sophie's Snack Journal

[Sophie]

I've been buying too many snacks over the past few months. Because my friends and I have finally arranged next year's accommodation and I would like to save money for it, I've decided to put an end to my unhealthy habit. It goes without saying that a few dollars here and there on snacks could definitely be spent more wisely. I also have a suspected iron deficiency that could be resolved by eating larger meals instead of snacking every evening.

I have decided to stop buying snacks. I want to see how long I can last without buying them, so every now and then I will post a new comment with an update on my progress. I thought this would help motivate me a bit to maintain the goal.

My main concerns are crisps and chocolates, so if I buy something cheap and healthy as a snack I'm not going to count it as having ruined my goal. This isn't about imposing an arbitrary ban as it is spending less money and trying to be a healthier person. Therefore, my remaining snack drawer will be given to my flat mates via our Donation Den :(

Today marks day one of Snackless Sophie :)

 

[zDutchie]

Good luck, you got this! \^-^/

 

[user947836]

Good luck.

 

[Zombiepower]

GoodLuck Sophie!

 

[Miauw]

Best of luck. I can asure you that it feels a lot better physically and mentally if you lay down the crisps and chocolate. If you keep it up long enough your mind probably won't even have such a need to eat them anymore. I somewhat experienced the same a few months back.

 

[Teleef]

Goodluck gurl

 

[Anthoony]

Good luck :)

 

[BringMeTheHorizon ♠]

This has indirectly helped me motivate a one month plan to improve my entire life, which literally started by me being convinced to stop buying snacks in school.

Anyways, this one month plan will slowly develop into a more of a bimonthly plan, 6 month plan then a yearly plan, and each month I'll probably write down on some note pad the progress.

The plan is as follows:
1- No more snacking and spending money in school
2- Save up the money I'll stop using to snack
3- Actually force myself to study even if I have 0 motivation to do so
4- Open up to people and stop keeping everything to myself
5- Do sports
6- Socialize more, especially in school
7- Try and get out of the house at least once a month to do activities with my family or friends, rather than literally locking myself in my room for hours a day
8- No more eating dinner, breakfast or lunch more than once a day
9- Learn to self control more
10- Sleep early

This is my plan to start a healthy lifestyle and a diet as well, because it's honestly time to work on my life rather than just sleep most of the day xd

So far I haven't bought any snacks in 2 days and I saved up a few dollars already, this will also definitely help me with my plans to travel and visit a special friend in the future

I've also asked my dad to give me a monthly allowance that's equivalent to my daily allowance over a period of a month, so I would know if I ever needed to stop spending as I've spent too much already (35$ at the start of every month rather than 1.33$ every day)

Good luck with cutting off your unhealthy habit! ^^

 

[Sweetenerera]

6- Socialize more

iehw, socializing

 

[Sophie]

Try and get out of the house at least once a month

Lmao optimistic much?

10- Sleep early

Very underrated!!! I sometimes sleep as early as 8pm and wake up at 3am. You get the tranquillity of silence and darkness, except you're gradually getting more awake instead of falling asleep. It'll also boost your productivity massively.

Good luck, and glad to be an inspiration for better living <3

Edit: I should probably update everybody on my progress so far. Today marks day four of Snackless Sophie and thus far I have maintained my objective; I haven't purchased anything, and have not snacked on anything unhealthy. Doing this has actually revealed a dependency I hadn't noticed prior to purging snacks from my diet. Yesterday was a nightmare to get through because by mid-afternoon I had a huge craving for crisps. Either my meals are still too small or I'm having trouble letting go :'(

Thank youuu for all the wonderful replies. I didn't expect so many people to see this thread tbh.

 

[Sophie]

Today marks the first completed week of Snackless Sophie! \0/

I've started eating breakfast daily, which should help sate the urge for snacking and also give me more of those tasty nutrient things my doctor keeps yapping on about. I have also begun mass-cooking tubs of pasta, rice and spaghet so I can snack on healthier things between meals if I need to. I also have apples and carrots in the fridge, however the apples are intended for breakfasts. Carrots are still fair game though, I've had one between lunch and dinner a few times.

I often combine rice with korma sauce, chickpeas, peas and crushed cashews.
I combine pasta with mayonnaise, peas, sweetcorn and cashews.
I combine spaghet with tomato sauce and cashews.
Conclusion: Add cashews to everything. They're quite nice, make boring textures more interesting and they last forever seeing as you're adding like four of them to each meal by the time you've ground them up.

Since I am dedicated to continuing this for as long as possible, I want to make a few of the "rules" clearer.

-I am not forbidding all snacks, just anything that is unhealthy. This includes nuts, crisps, chocolates, desserts, cakes, biscuits, or anything high in sugar or salt
-I am allowing myself to snack sparingly on fruits and vegetables, and anything pre-cooked such as pasta. However, I am not spending any additional money on them; I buy one bag of carrots every fortnight, and if I eat them all I cannot buy more until my next shopping delivery. I know I said I could buy healthy snacks in the original post, but it's a slippery slope and the point of this was to save money. I caught my right hand trying to pick up a bag of nuts in the pound shop earlier, so it's best if I just forbid any additional spending
-I buy three bananas and six apples every fortnight. They are cheap, but are intended to compliment breakfasts; no snacking on these
-I will be ordering 5KG of spaghet in my next shopping order. This will only cost me £2 because ASDA doesn't understand how capitalism works. Perhaps they should take some notes from America's healthcare system?
-Sweetcorn is nice (this one is a rule on life, not a rule on Snackless Sophie)

See you all in a week, or never if I accidentally spend £4,000 on Pringles and have to sell my PC to escape debt. If this happens, I hold Spuuuni and BringMe accountable.


Johncoles give obsidian rank pls thnx

 

[matcha]

See you all in a week, or never if I accidentally spend £4,000 on Pringles and have to sell my PC to escape debt.

Probably also has a £2,000 gaming chair

 

[coralines]

Big good luck on this! I keep getting in and out of diets, but with exams being over now I’m definitely going to allocate all my time and energy into getting a better shape.

If I may drop suggestions, I wouldn’t recommend going full on carbohydrates unless you know you are about to work out. Eating them daily can sometimes do more harm than anything, so try to balance them out with meat and fish (especially if you have an iron deficiency).

I agree that the snacking part is hard and I’m actually trying to do the same, but according to some nutritionists snacking can be good as long as it is healthy and regular, because patterns are good for your body.

But hey, big congrats on deciding to go for this. It seems like a small change tbh, but stopping any kind of snacking for a longer period of time can absolutely pay off - or at least it did for me in the past, going from slightly overweight to average/good weight within a few months just by doing that and changing my meals.