When I was a kid it was all about eating the folded chips first and then turning the bag upside down and dumping the crumbs into my mouth. 

How do you eat potato chips? 

In the diet world potato chips are a “out of sight out of mind” or a “cheat day” food. People who are on diets do not eat potato chips or they eat the whole bag because they never know the when the next day will be they will eat potato chips. 

There are a couple problems with the diet mentality surrounding potato chips:

1. Potato chips are everywhere! They are in at least three different places at the drugstore on the corner, front and center with all the other food at the coffee shop, and the grocery store has a full aisle for potato chips, another one for “healthy” chips and more in every checkout lane. Potato chips come as a side almost anywhere you go (we can count fries as a potato chip ;)!!) Out of sight is a difficult approach.
2. Eating a whole bag of potato chips on your cheat day. The whole concept of a cheat day is not very sustainable. You are telling yourself you can take one day and not be healthy and not continue a healthy relationship with food and yourself. 

With nutrition coaching we want our clients to build a healthy relationship with their potato chips and food everyday. 

So how the heck should you eat potato chips? 

Honestly, it depends on YOU! Everyone’s a little different and I won’t say the two ways above won’t work for you, but I wanted to give you another option…

With any healthy relationship you have to nurture it everyday and your relationship with potato chips is no different.  If you are someone who can consume a whole bag at a time try these steps to improve your relationship with the potato chips:

1. Buy 1 bag of your favorite kind of chips. 
2. Check to see if you have 7 containers (any size), if not buy some. 
3. Open the bag of chips and divide it into the seven containers. 
4. Do you have post-it notes? If not, grab some when you are at the store.
5. Write the day and time you are going to eat each container of chips, one container per day. 
6. To go a step farther, put the containers in different places in your kitchen so they are not all stacked together. 
7. Eat one container per day at the assigned time! Slowly, enjoying every moment. 

What do you think? 

What if you had control over the chips rather than them controlling you? As a nutrition coach I try to avoid the “you can’t eat that” or “you should get that out of your house”. Once you have control over your food it becomes easier to stop when you’re full, easier to say “no thank you” to dessert or a refill on chips at the local Mexican restaurant.  

How are you going to eat your potato chips this week? Maybe your thing is chocolate… It works the same. Take control of your vices and what follows will amaze you! 

If you need help taking control of your relationship with potato chips (food) come chat with me. Sit down with me for 30 minutes for FREE and start to build a healthy relationship with your food! 

Coach Emily 

PS my thing is popcorn 😉