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Are you an accidental eater?

Last year I was in the middle of training for a gruelling 250 mile bike ride in Kenya for charity. My routine consisted of lots and lots of biking and spinning. I should have been at my thinnest ever, but in actual fact I put a considerable amount of weight on. Confused?.....So was I. That is until I stumbled across a magazine article that shone a light on the whole situation - I was an accidental eater, falling into fat traps without even realising it!

Picking = pounds

I work in a pub that also serves food and I can guarantee that when the grubs cooking, my stomach's rumbling and the temptation to steal a few chips here and there when chef's cooked too many is just too great by far. Nothing wrong with a chip here and there right? WRONG! One day, a colleague and I sat down and worked out that by chomping on just nine chips .....that's NINE, you could consume up to 232 calories!!! Calories that I certainly didn't count when I was working out what I'd consumed in a day. Just because they're not part of a meal doesn't mean they don't count! That goes for those mini celebration chocs too!

Calories drink do count!

Coke, coffee and cocktails - they might look like harmless liquids, but they are packed with pesky calories that can help to pile on the pounds. You're brain doesn't register liquid calories in the same way as it does food calories and on a Saturday night out it's very easy to pack away several hundred with all those sugary drinks. Try intercepting alcohol with water (also a great way to ease tomorrows hangover) and stick to cocktails with one type of alcohol. Limit the amount of sugary drinks you consume in a day too - try swapping coke for low sugar squash if you need something a bit tastier than water.

Love

Love can be blamed for many things and bigger hips is certainly one of them! Portion control goes out of the window when cooking for a loved one, plus restaurant trips and takeaways scoffed during a cosy night in all hamper the old diet. Try to look for low calories alternatives and skip dessert!

Diet foods and fun size portions

Diet foods and fun size portions allow us to fall into a terrible mindset where we believe that we can eat more of them because they are smaller / less calorific. The terrible truth however, is that no food is calorie free and as with normal food, the more you eat the more you gain.

Avoid temptation.

No-one should have to forgo a treat forever and obsessing about every morsel that crosses your lips is recipe for an unhealthy mindset about food and could lead to an eating disorder. I find that by considering my diet carefully, I can avoid most temptation traps. Starting the day with a healthy breakfast (porridge or cereal and fruit normally) helps me to stay away from the biscuit tin during the morning. I also make sure I've eaten something healthy and filling before I go to work these days so that I'm not hungry when I get there and therefore am not so tempted to pick - (I do this before I go food shopping too so that I'm not tempted to load the trolley full of naughty treats.)

It's simply down to being aware about what you are eating and where possible opting for a healthier option.