I have come to a very important conclusion: going grocery shopping after I finish work is a terrible idea. It seems so good in theory, I get to keep my weekend time for more fun and family time plus I’m already driving past the supermarket. But in all honesty, I find that by that point in the weekday whatever temperance, restraint and sensible decision-making I have apparently clocks off well before I even make it to the supermarket. I walk in with my list, intending to stick to it and “somehow” (I know exactly how) emerge with enough snacks for my family to survive an apocalypse. Suddenly everything looks good, everything feels justified, and I’ve made the executive decision that we desperately need six different kinds of lunchbox snacks and two different kinds of ice-cream for the week. It would be easy to turn this into another story about needing more discipline, but I actually think there is a far more useful lesson hiding underneath it: know your limitations and stop repeatedly putting yourself in situations where you know your decision-making is at its worst.

We tend to think that being good at managing our weight should mean becoming someone who can resist temptation anywhere, anytime, under any circumstances. But why? There are times when we're tired, hungry, stressed, overstimulated or simply completely over making decisions for the day. Expecting ourselves to exercise exactly the same level of restraint in those moments as we would when we're rested, calm and well-fed isn't necessarily strength — sometimes it's just making things difficult when it doesn’t have to be. A healthy weight mindset isn't about proving that you can walk through the snack aisle exhausted and hungry and heroically leave with a bag of spinach. Sometimes it's about knowing that at 5.30pm you should not be trusted unsupervised in the confectionery aisle.

There is something incredibly powerful about learning your own patterns without turning them into character flaws. Maybe you know that when you're overtired you eat everything in sight. Maybe Friday night takeaway dinner always turns towards dessert then into an entire weekend of "I'll start again Monday." Maybe keeping certain foods in the house means you think about them constantly, or skipping lunch almost guarantees you'll spend the afternoon hunting through the pantry. We can keep putting ourselves in these situations and then blaming ourselves when the predictable happens, or we can work with what we know. Shop on the weekend, order the groceries online, or maybe husband can do it instead (he started to, by the way). Don't put yourself in the situation where you buy the family-sized packet of the thing you know you will personally treat as a single serving. Knowing where you struggle allows you to build your life around supporting yourself rather than constantly testing yourself.

And perhaps that's one of the biggest mindset shifts when it comes to maintaining a healthy weight: you don't need to become a person without limitations. You need to become a person who understands them. There is no prize for making healthy choices as difficult as humanly possible. The goal isn't to spend your life standing in front of temptation demonstrating extraordinary willpower; it's to create routines, environments and habits that mean you don't have to rely on extraordinary willpower very often at all. So I've learned something about myself: after a long day at work, I am apparently capable of preparing for a snack-related national emergency. And whilst that’s potentially a valuable skill, it’s not usually one I need in my arsenal. So instead of promising that next time I'll simply "be stronger," perhaps the smarter move is to rearrange our household plans so I no longer go grocery shopping after work.