How to stop eating junk food

Why it sticks

Junk food is designed to be easy, cheap and very rewarding: salt, sugar and fat in combinations that are hard to stop eating. The cue is often tiredness, a long day, or passing the same shop every evening. Cooking feels like work when you are worn out, and an app can get food to you in thirty minutes. The habit is mostly about convenience, so convenience is where to fight it.

How to stop eating junk food

1. Delete the delivery apps

   Remove takeaway apps from your phone. Ordering from a browser takes longer, and that pause is often enough. Keep one number for a planned takeaway night.

2. Keep three quick meals ready

   Have the ingredients for three meals you can make in fifteen minutes, like eggs on toast, pasta with a jar sauce and vegetables, or a stir fry. When you are tired, there is an easy option.

3. Change your route

   If you pass the same fast food place every day, take a different way home. The cue disappears.

4. Plan one takeaway night

   Pick one night a week for takeaway and enjoy it. A ban tends to collapse into a binge.

5. Eat before you get too hungry

   A snack in the late afternoon stops you arriving home starving, which is when the takeaway happens.

6. Cook in batches

   Cook a big pot on Sunday and freeze portions. A reheated meal beats a takeaway on speed.

What to track instead

A row that only records the habit not happening gets a tick on the days you were never tempted, and tells you nothing on the day it mattered. Give the row to the replacement:

• Cook at home
• Afternoon snack
• No delivery apps
• One planned takeaway

Print a tracker with these 4 habits or open them in a spreadsheet.

Your first week

1. Day 1. Count last week's takeaways and fast food meals.
2. Day 2. Delete the delivery apps.
3. Day 3. Buy ingredients for three fifteen-minute meals.
4. Day 4. Eat a snack at 4pm.
5. Day 5. Take a different route home.
6. Day 6. Cook a big batch and freeze portions.
7. Day 7. Have your planned takeaway and enjoy it.