How do you lose weight in a kitchen you never leave?

I spend most of my day taking care of everyone else. There’s always something to cook, something to clean, somewhere to be. And somewhere in all of that, I'm supposed to lose weight too.

Most days, the first food I touch isn't mine. By seven-thirty I've made two breakfasts and packed two lunches. I've also cut an apple into the thin slices my youngest will actually eat.

Somewhere in there I eat the crusts, a few crackers and whatever the kids leave on their plates. I never count any of it. I'm standing up the whole time, so it doesn't feel like eating.

I spend more of my day in the kitchen than in any other room. It's also the room where I try the hardest not to eat. On grocery days I'm the one who puts away every box of granola bars and every bag of chocolate chips, so I know exactly where all of it is.

I've been trying to lose weight for a while now. It's the weight that came with the kids and never left. Every morning I promised myself I wouldn't pick at anything that day, and most days I made it to lunch.

Two o'clock

By two I'd been on my feet since before six. I was usually running on five or six hours of sleep. That was about when I started noticing the pantry. I didn't go in at first. I just kept walking past it with the laundry basket, then the vacuum, then the mail.

Some afternoons the house was completely quiet. Everyone was at work or at school, and there was nobody to talk to until pickup. On those days I'd open the pantry even when I wasn't hungry. I'd eat a handful of whatever was sweet and close the door again.

Then it was time for pickup. Backpacks hit the floor and everyone was hungry at once. I'd stand at the open pantry handing out snacks, and I'd take one for myself too.

What I told myself

At night I'd go back over the day. I'd done fine until two, and then I hadn't. The scale still wasn't moving.

I'm home all day, I'd tell myself. No boss, no commute, nothing to blame. If anyone should be able to manage this, it's me.

So I kept it quiet. I ate the kids' leftovers standing at the sink. I pushed wrappers to the bottom of the trash before anyone got home. Some days the only thing I did just for me was eat something sweet in an empty house, and then I spent the rest of the afternoon wishing I hadn't.

If your afternoons sound like mine, here's what I take now. The rest of this is how I found it.

I thought it was just me

None of the other moms at pickup ever mentioned an afternoon standoff with their own pantry. When I finally told a friend, half as a joke, she laughed like someone who knew exactly what I meant.

Stanford psychologists have found that people consistently underestimate how common other people's struggles are, partly because those are the things everyone keeps private. We compare our own kitchen at two-thirty with everyone else's smile at pickup.

Why the afternoons were so hard

Looking back, the afternoon was stacked against me:

• I'd said no to food dozens of times before two: every snack I packed, every plate I cleared, every time I opened the pantry for someone else.
• I was tired in a way one good night never fixed.
• Something sweet was one of the only rewards in a day built around everyone else's needs.

I'd never thought of being around food all day as part of the problem. It was just my job. I couldn't get rid of the snacks, because the kids need them. Keeping busy didn't help either, since it only meant walking past the pantry more often. When I did give in, it was almost always for something sweet.

What gymnema does

Gymnema sylvestre is a plant. It contains compounds called gymnemic acids, which block the sweet taste receptors on your tongue. For about thirty to sixty minutes afterward, sweet things taste far less sweet than they normally would.

In brain-imaging studies, the reward response to sugar drops along with the taste. It only works if it actually touches your tongue, which is why the taste studies used mints, lozenges and rinses.

For someone who can't get away from the food, that narrow effect was the right kind of help. I didn't need to become a different person all day. I needed the cookie at two-thirty to stop being the best thing about the afternoon.

What I take

Blue Balance Metabolic Support

A liquid herbal blend that includes gymnema.

• One dropper (one milliliter), taken directly in the mouth or stirred into water.
• Gymnema plus seven other botanicals, including Oregon grape root and Ceylon cinnamon.
• Non-GMO Project Verified and third-party tested

I take a dropper after lunch, and keep the bottle next to the coffee maker so I don't forget.

A quick test in your own kitchen

1. Take one dropper directly in your mouth, or in a little water.
2. Eat something sweet: a square of chocolate, a spoonful of sugar, one of the kids' cookies.
3. Notice what happens to the sweetness.

The first time I tried it, the cookie tasted like almost nothing. It wasn't bad. It was just flat, like someone had left out the sugar.

That told me the taste part worked for me. Whether my afternoons would actually change took one week to find out.

If you want to try it yourself, you can get Blue Balance here.

The studies

The taste effect has been studied in people, including:

• a randomized crossover trial in 32 people who described themselves as heavy sweet-food eaters;
• a trial that tested a four-milligram gymnemic-acid mint against a placebo in 56 adults;
• two-week studies that looked at sugar intake and cravings. 

The results on cravings are more mixed. Studies say, 63% of the participants also reported fewer food cravings. 

What to expect

You can tell whether the taste effect works for you on the first day. Whether anything else changes takes longer. The formula's study measured results at four weeks.

My days look the same as they did. I still make every breakfast and pack every lunch, and I still walk past the pantry more times than I can count. But with the sweetness turned down after lunch, walking past it isn't such a fight anymore. Some afternoons I still have a cookie. The difference is that I'm the one deciding.

Nothing about my day is different. I still make every breakfast, pack every lunch and pass the pantry more times than I could count. What changed was two-thirty. With the sweetness turned down, walking past the pantry stopped feeling like such a fight. Some afternoons I still have a cookie. The difference is that I'm the one deciding.

If you want to try it

Blue Balance is $24.99, and it's buy one, get one free. Order one bottle and a second is added to your cart automatically. It also comes with a 60-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked.

That's plenty of time to try the taste test and see how your afternoons go. If it doesn't help, you get your money back.