Are You Sabotaging Your Diet?

By Jill Provost

You walk with your girlfriends at lunch and have sworn off candy bars in exchange for lowfat snacks. So why is the scale not budging? Despite our best intentions, we all fall prey to habits that are plumping us up-even if we don't realize they are. Here, sneaky traps that can sabotage weight loss and what you can do about them.

Your lunch buddies are voracious eaters.

You've heard of the brat pack, but what about the fat pack? According to a recent study, self-control (or lack of) is contagious. If you dine with ravenous or junk-food-loving friends, you'll unconsciously mirror their eating habits. But don't reserve a table for one just yet-especially if you're a heavy eater. Some of us fall into our worst habits when no one's watching, says Brian Wansink, PhD, author of Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Your best bet: Eat with people who practice portion control.

You put yourself in temptation's way.

News flash: You cannot satisfy your sweet tooth via osmosis-so step away from the cupcake counter. "We eat what is put in front of us, and we eat what we see," says Elizabeth Somer, RD, author of Eat Your Way to Happiness. To prove this, Dr. Wansink gave bowls of Hershey's Kisses to a group of secretaries. Half were in opaque containers, while the other half were in clear glass ones. Those who could see the Kisses ate 71 percent more. The solution: Limit exposure to your favorite goodies. Do not walk down the junk-food aisle, do not wander into the bakery and do not keep treats within your line of vision. Instead, put a fruit bowl where you can see it.

You fill your cart with organic crackers and lowfat cookies.

"Research shows that all health claims on food labels are interpreted as 'low-calorie,'" says Marion Nestle, PhD, author of Food Politics. When we think we're being healthy, we reward ourselves by eating more-44 percent more, according to Dr. Wansink. Lowfat foods are especially tricky, says Bonnie Taub-Dix, RD, author of Read It Before You Eat It, because they're higher in sugar and calories than their full-fat counterparts. What you need to do is start reading food labels very carefully. Take fat and calories into account, and stick with the recommended serving size. Or consider whether a smaller portion of a full-fat treat might do less damage.

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You reward yourself for making healthy choices.

Feeling pretty proud of yourself? Hide the snack cakes. Research shows we're more likely to indulge in unhealthy choices when basking in the glow of a recent achievement. The reason? We want a reward that does not come in the form of a spinach salad. Unfortunately, we aren't very good at calculating how many calories we've burned, or how many we're about to consume. For example, during your 3-mile morning walk, you may have burned the same amount of calories contained in a couple of Munchkins doughnut holes, but that doesn't mean you should swing by Dunkin' Donuts on the way home. Don't forget: You have to burn more calories than you consume in order to lose weight. If you're craving a sweet reward after a week of sticking to your weight-loss plan, suck on a piece of hard candy.

Your plate is a cornucopia of flavors.

There's a reason we eat so much on Thanksgiving or at all-you-can-eat buffets-and it's not because of the sheer volume of food offered. Rather, it's the endless possibility of dishes. If you have the same amount of food but in one flavor, you experience what Dr. Wansink refers to as "taste bud burnout." Essentially, your taste receptors get bored and you stop eating. "When there's a greater variety, you can eat a lot more after you're already full," he explains. A study at Penn State found that people given three flavors of yogurt ate nearly 25 percent more than those given one. Outsmart your taste buds by choosing single-flavor snacks (think chocolate ice cream instead of chocolate-vanilla-peanut-butter-toffee) and one-dish meals.

You refuse dessert but take a bite of someone else's.

One bite here and one bite there don't seem like much, and that's precisely why they're so dangerous. "Every bite you take packs about 25 calories. Just four mindless bites in a day and you've gained a pound in one month," says Somer. What's worse, even the most conscientious dieter forgets to count those extra nibbles. Make a pact with yourself that you will only eat food when it's been portioned onto a plate. That means no tasting recipes as you go, cleaning your kids' plates or sampling your husband's brownie.

You eat standing up.

Late for work again, you try to shave a few minutes off your morning routine by slurping down cereal at the kitchen sink. We're all guilty of shoveling food into our faces without ever sitting down for a proper meal. It's the byproduct of a hectic lifestyle that unfortunately comes at a cost to our waistlines. Research shows we feel less satisfied when we take our meals standing up. We also underestimate how much we've eaten and end up snacking more throughout the day-around 30 percent more, in fact! While it's true that most of us spend entirely too much time resting on our behinds, consider this your permission slip for sitting down to dine.

You enjoy a cocktail with dinner.

According to Somer, alcohol can fool us into thinking we're hungry, even when we're not. "We eat as many as 200 extra calories during a meal when it's accompanied by one alcoholic drink," she says. And that's not even counting the calories contained in the actual beverage! The average glass of wine or beer packs about 150 calories, but it's the cocktails that can really get you into trouble. "Women think of beer as fattening, but you'll gain weight twice as fast with a gin and tonic or a Cosmopolitan," she says. For example, an 8-oz margarita clocks in at 380 calories. Drink two and you're looking at the equivalent of a Quarter Pounder with cheese and a small order of fries.

You belong to a wholesale club.

You buy in bulk to save money, but it's not just your wallet you're padding. Research shows that bigger containers encourage bigger helpings. According to Dr. Wansink, large packages throw our sense of scale out of whack. This portion distortion causes us to dole out 25 percent more food than we would serve ourselves from a medium-size container. Bottomless bowls, double-wide plates and gargantuan buckets of popcorn are also to blame. Consider a well-known study where moviegoers given large popcorn containers ate 45 percent more than those given medium-size ones-even when the popcorn was stale. While it's OK to buy healthy, whole foods like salad greens and fruit in bulk, steer clear of mega-size packaged foods. Along the same lines, when ordering out, opt for the smaller serving size.

Original article appeared on WomansDay.com

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