It may seem to hard to believe, but Fruity Pebbles cereal can be part of your diet improvement. It all depends on the bad food you ate beforehand.
Last week, I chose to purchase a gigantic box of Fruity Pebbles. This was designed to ween me off my poor snacking habit of hammering large bags of M&M’s, something I’ve done off and on for years, and periodically defeat as one of my addictions.
The rationale goes like this: “What’s worse? A bowl of Fruity Pebbles? Or seven ounces of mini-M&M’s?’
You can look on the box of cereal or the wrapper of the candy to look at how you’re being harmed. Carbohydrates. Sugar. Artificial flavors and colors. You’re going to get it in spades from both products.
Here’s the thing where Fruity Pebbles helps me out, and perhaps this is a method for anyone to slightly reduce consumption of something you know is not good for you, but you still find it being a go-to snack over and over: You serve it in a bowl.
Why does serving it in a bowl mean anything? Because that limits what you pour into it. Sure, you can pile the Fruity Pebbles until it overflows when the milk is poured in, but the bowl in and of itself establishes limits for you. Of course, you must stop at one bowl, but that’s kind of a built-in limit. And you need to keep your bowl to a normal size and not go for the mixer bowl that allows you to pour half the box of cereal into it.
M&M’s have no such advantage. Sure, if you buy small packages at the convenience store, the size of the package can limit what you put in your mouth. But if you go for the smallest package available, it’s still easy to buy two and eat both of them.
The thing, too, about chewing Fruity Pebbles (for me anyway) is you take a little extra time to crunch them and roll them around in your mouth, which leads to you eating slower and ultimately satisfying your sweet tooth. M&M’s you can just keep tossing in your mouth. For long periods of time.
The cereal bowl also has some type of psychological limiting factor for unknown reasons. Maybe it goes back to eating cereal for breakfast. You pour the grain in, saturate it with milk, munch away, and when you’re done, it’s time to start your day. When you eat a bowl for a snack to satisfy your sugar urge, boredom, anger or motivational needs, it delivers on that mindset. You eat, you’re done, you move onto the next task on hand, whether that’s something at work or around your home.
I do have some worries about using Fruity Pebbles as a crutch. This coming week, I’m switching over to Cocoa Pebbles for a change of pace, and to keep the boredom curve from kicking in. Gotta shake things up, if you know what I mean.
But the same principles of limitation and slower munching should keep my Cocoa Pebbles consumption on the right track to provide the slight positive results expected from switching over from the pounding of M&M’s. I’ll let you know when I lose a pound.
Last week, I chose to purchase a gigantic box of Fruity Pebbles. This was designed to ween me off my poor snacking habit of hammering large bags of M&M’s, something I’ve done off and on for years, and periodically defeat as one of my addictions.
The rationale goes like this: “What’s worse? A bowl of Fruity Pebbles? Or seven ounces of mini-M&M’s?’
You can look on the box of cereal or the wrapper of the candy to look at how you’re being harmed. Carbohydrates. Sugar. Artificial flavors and colors. You’re going to get it in spades from both products.
Here’s the thing where Fruity Pebbles helps me out, and perhaps this is a method for anyone to slightly reduce consumption of something you know is not good for you, but you still find it being a go-to snack over and over: You serve it in a bowl.
Why does serving it in a bowl mean anything? Because that limits what you pour into it. Sure, you can pile the Fruity Pebbles until it overflows when the milk is poured in, but the bowl in and of itself establishes limits for you. Of course, you must stop at one bowl, but that’s kind of a built-in limit. And you need to keep your bowl to a normal size and not go for the mixer bowl that allows you to pour half the box of cereal into it.
M&M’s have no such advantage. Sure, if you buy small packages at the convenience store, the size of the package can limit what you put in your mouth. But if you go for the smallest package available, it’s still easy to buy two and eat both of them.
The thing, too, about chewing Fruity Pebbles (for me anyway) is you take a little extra time to crunch them and roll them around in your mouth, which leads to you eating slower and ultimately satisfying your sweet tooth. M&M’s you can just keep tossing in your mouth. For long periods of time.
The cereal bowl also has some type of psychological limiting factor for unknown reasons. Maybe it goes back to eating cereal for breakfast. You pour the grain in, saturate it with milk, munch away, and when you’re done, it’s time to start your day. When you eat a bowl for a snack to satisfy your sugar urge, boredom, anger or motivational needs, it delivers on that mindset. You eat, you’re done, you move onto the next task on hand, whether that’s something at work or around your home.
I do have some worries about using Fruity Pebbles as a crutch. This coming week, I’m switching over to Cocoa Pebbles for a change of pace, and to keep the boredom curve from kicking in. Gotta shake things up, if you know what I mean.
But the same principles of limitation and slower munching should keep my Cocoa Pebbles consumption on the right track to provide the slight positive results expected from switching over from the pounding of M&M’s. I’ll let you know when I lose a pound.
