Mindless snacking

By far my worst pre-weight loss eating habit was mindless snacking. I think I may have eaten half my calories that way. It's so easy to do and so hard to break for the very reason that it's mindless. Meaning, it's hard to stop doing something you don't even realize you're doing.

I worked very hard at breaking this habit, but STILL, I find that when I'm not paying attention I walk through the kitchen grabbing handfuls of Mighty Bites or picking at the kids leftover apple slices, or grabbing a handful of peanuts. It's a constant battle with me. Going on day 3 of a debilitating snowstorm, I'm realizing just how much harder it is when at home all day. I have my computer near the kitchen and this makes it much worse.

I'm also exercising more, both inside and out, mainly to avoid cleaning/shoveling, but the long days are hard. I would think that almost 1 year into this I would have totally broken the habit, but instead my mindless snacking ebbs and flows. I certainly don't do it with high-cal foods like dried fruits and nuts without noticing. If I take a handful or dried cherries or peanuts I'm cognizant of it and it's usually because I'm really hungry and want to stave that off with something satisfying. But the lower-cal items like cereal and left-over kid items I eat without thinking sometimes.

I think part of the problem is that while at first I tried to cut the habit cold-turkey, eventually especially when hungry and cooking dinner I would allow myself to munch on carrots and sugar-snap peas or tomatoes, maybe even with a little hummus if I was really hungry. So "NO SNACKING" is not a hard and fast rule. I just don't think I could ever get there and I'm not sure I'd want to. There is really nothing wrong with eating carrots...except that it triggers my TMJ and a horrible headache. So I'm left with a slippery slope rule instead, which is the worst kind.

Soon we're going outside to shovel our street and try and slide our cars down the hill. That should keep my fingers out of the cereal box!