Grazing on food is a sure-fire way to pack on pounds because it’s easy to lose track of bites and nibbles.  It’s easy to underestimate how much you’re eating when you eat directly from a bag, out of a box, or standing in front of the freezer with a spoon in the ice cream carton.

A simple trick to reduce mindless grazing is to force yourself to serve everything you eat on a plate or some sort of dinnerware.

You don’t have to deny yourself anything; you just have to serve yourself properly. For example, as soon as you reach your hand into a box of cereal for a quick bite, stop yourself, grab a bowl or mug, and pour some out instead. It’s much easier to keep track of what you are eating when you portion it out. If you eat a mug of cereal and then go back for another you can estimate that you’ll be eating a total of 2-3 servings of cereal, or maybe 200-400 calories. As you continue to do this you will become more aware of how much you are really eating. The goal is to make yourself more conscious of your nibbling so that you don’t overdo it.  Sometimes people think that if they eat out of a box it doesn’t really count, but this is precisely the kind of nibbling that packs on pounds.

Serving yourself a portion of something requires making a conscious and deliberate choice, thereby reducing the dangers of “mindless eating”.

If you enjoy the portion you served yourself and then go back for seconds you are making another deliberate choice. As this continues, you may eventually decide that three mugs of cereal or three bowls of chips before dinner is too much of a good thing and maybe it isn’t worth the extra calories after all.

The bottom line is this: you deserve to eat off a plate!  Show yourself respect and serve yourself properly.  If you know you’re going to eat something, go ahead and plate it up and give yourself permission to enjoy it.

You might be able to sneak bites from a bag or a box and keep your family members from noticing, but you’re not sneaking anything from your body. Own up to your eating!