I am not a perfect eater. If I was, I would likely be 15 pounds lighter and maintaining at *that* weight instead of where I have been maintaining.
I have portion sizes down pat. Meals are easy for me. I rarely overeat at mealtimes. Snacks have to be planned in or I will pacman my way through the pantry. Even when I do plan snacks, things can go awry. This is usually due to stress or hormones. When both of those beams cross, it spells doom. 
There are 2 times of day that are hard for me. Mid morning I can get pretty snacky (which is true hunger) and the time between cooking dinner and eating dinner. Dinner time especially is the hardest. Since I am getting things out of the pantry, I will grab a few nuts, crackers, a handful of cereal, etc., and nibble These add up fast.
Sometimes I get food amnesia and forget to record it. Even if *I* don’t write it down, my body doesn’t know that. It’s not like my body says “Wait, if she didn’t write it, don’t store any of those calories”. Don’t we wish it were like that?
Working at home has its challenges, and a big one is the food. Of course, I do control the food that comes into the house. (Or mostly, since John is part of the household and can bring in whatever he wants. ). We don’t bring in a bunch of junk food and things like that, but that doesn’t stop me from overeating stuff in the pantry.
Like nuts:
Sometimes I am okay with nuts. I was for a while, but then I got snacky on them and this week they were not bought at the store. Off to the dungeon you go, nuts. Sorry.
Cereal:
This can really be a red light food for me. John eats a lot of cereal, so we buy it. Again, sometimes I am fine having it around. Other times I will get a small bowl of it like this. Doesn’t seem so bad until I have done that 4 or 5 times. That’s a serving and a half.
One of John’s favorite snacks is chocolate chips.
This is his bowl by his computer. Who walks up and snags some chips out of his bowl? That would be me.
I took this picture and John was thinking I was going to make some comment about his snacking habits on the blog LOL! Nope, just my habits.
Interestingly, I have yet to have an issue with dried pineapple.
I love this stuff, too. However, the most I can eat is 2 rings, and usually I just eat one. Why this food is different than some others, I don’t know, but I am okay with that.
I know I have mentioned before that when there is a food in the house that I start having a problem with, I get it away from mouth eye level and it goes up here:
That doesn’t completely stop me from getting stuff, but I would say it is about 90% effective. I forget about things up there, too, which is good.
I don’t take a snapshot of all these snacks during the day. So I hope that no one thinks I eat perfectly all the time. I don’t have it all figured out and struggle with this sometimes. Just puttin’ that out there.
I hear ya! I’d like to be 10 pounds lighter. Whatever!
I don’t snack at home (except when cooking–which is a terrible habit). But I do get the snack attacks at work, usually in the afternoon. I’m trying to break that habit.
I feel the same way about snacks… Sometimes, having dark chocolate in the house is not a good idea. For some reason, on some days one is just not enough. Like you, I just don’t buy it for a while. Later, I can go back to having one piece. Cereal is definitely a trigger food for me, so I don’t keep any. Luckily, my husband and boys don’t eat it much. I recently went back to work full-time, and I find that I don’t snack nearly as much during the day as I did when I was home. At work, I only have what I’ve packed in my bag…all healthy, no other options :)Sometimes, options are dangerous for me 🙂
Evening snacking is what does me in. For as long as I can remember, evening snacks has been a part of my life. Chocolate will find its way to my mouth, if it is in the house. Recently, I told my husband to please not buy chocolate for a while and if he does then to hide it from me and don’t tell me. Well, it worked for a day and then I broke down and opened the chocolate chips. I’m working on breaking the habit, but it will take some time.
Hi Lori! I relate so much to what you said. If I were as good as my best days, I’d definitely be a size smaller. I try to keep my slip-ups small. If they were bigger, I’d go up a size.
I have really tall ceilings in my home. I stick the worst foods into the crock pot (yep, don’t cook much with that) up 9 feet high in the pantry so I need a ladder to get at it, and risk tipping over the crock pot onto myself taking it down. The little scare factor helps. 😀
🙂 Marion
Right now, when I’m trying to be so careful and lose weight, I don’t seem to be having problems with snacks. I DO watch the clock sometimes, eagerly waiting for the next planned meal or snack. The only ‘legal’ snack right now is baby carrots, which I love. I usually snack on those while fixing dinner. Sophie likes to snack on them while waiting for dinner too :))
I’m glad you shared this. Its good for us to hear other people aren’t perfect either.
Its weird how that out of sight out of mind thing works. It works so good for me that I have occasionally let some really good snack get stale!
As you know I could have written this post myself. My snacking habits are the biggest challenge for me. As you say, if I didn’t snack in between I would have been at goal weight long time ago. Wait … I would never had overweight.
Sometimes I wish I was back in the days I was a child. Back then (snack) food wasn’t as available as it is today and we didn’t get much candy, cookies or chips. Because it wasn’t common to eat it everyday. How things have changed through the years.
I do fine on workdays, I bring my lunch and fruits for the day but at home it’s more difficult. Even if I buy stuff only R. likes, if I have a “bad” day I will eat that too even if I don’t really like it. Stupid habit right?
I have been waaaay too snacky lately. I know what you mean about having a handful here and there. I’ve been doing that with the nut butters, having a spoonful every time I have to go into the pantry. Those calories add up so fast!
Snacking can really mess me up sometimes, too. I think what helps me most is to drink a huge glass of water, because sometimes by late afternoon I might be a little dehydrated. Also have plenty of veggies like baby carrots, grape tomatoes, and cucumbers sliced up. That way if I’m still hungry after a planned snack, I can munch on those.
I nibble right when I come home from work and then usually sometime between dinner and bedtime. BAD Ali!!
Thanks for the note about writing food down. I haven’t done that in a long time and I think I need to get back to the basics and start writing everything down again.
Lori – none of us are perfect & if somebody says they are, you know it ain’t true! 😉 You do the best you can!!!
I am like you with cereal – I don’t bring it in the house & even that healthy Kashi protein ones, like them too much so I stopped buying them. 🙂 I won some KIND healthy granola & stats are pretty good for a portion size BUT ya have to keep to the portion size & as you showed in your pic, it is small & most of us tend to eat more than that OR just go back for nibbles!
I think you are doing great & we all – all of us including me – have are moments! YES, hormones & stress don’t help either!
Ah snacking – the bane of all dieters, I suspect. I’m with Fran – back when we were kids, snack foods weren’t as readily available (or maybe my mother just didn’t buy them, the big meanie!). But I was thin as a kid.
I’m pushing fresh fruit on myself like crazy these days. Funny that dried pineapple doesn’t make you want more – I tend to snack too much on dried fruit like that, so I don’t keep it around.
I can keep almost any food in the house and be okay with it…until suddenly I’m not. Cereal and nuts have never been a problem, but my precious chocolate kisses or squares are occasional troublemakers. I wish I knew what flipped the switch, because I’d yank the wiring in a hurry!
That’s a good way to put it – being okay with until you aren’t. That’s nuts for me right now.
My favorite line of this whole post? “Even if *I* don’t write it down, my body doesn’t know that.”
So true!
I admire folks like yourself who work from home and don’t snack perpetually. I’m fine at work, but home? I know I’d snack more than I should. Great post Lori, thank you as always for your wisdom and perspective.
Funny how I worked from home for many years and never had a problem with snacking while working. But oh boy, do I ever have a problem with snacking while reading now that I’m retired. I truly believe that it’s a “comfort” thing. There’s just something about a good book and a bag of chips that is cozy. Thankfully, I don’t do that much at all anymore. Also interesting to me (and a wonderful by-product of friends in BlogLand) is the open acknowledgement of things that do and do NOT cause us problems as individuals. So many people have trigger issues with cereal – something I have NEVER, NEVER had a problem with. We both used to eat lot of cereal and Bill still does, so there is always five or six boxes of a variety of cereals (all healthy stuff) in the pantry, but never once has that been a temptation to me beyond normal servings. Now the dried pineapple (and also dried papaya) is like crack to me. I’ll eat it until I’m sick and cannot stop. Same with nuts although I’m trying hard as I really want to have walnuts and almonds in the house for cooking. They do stay in the deep freeze out in the garage. Honestly, there are a LOT of things in the deep freeze that wouldn’t normally be. It’s the out of sight, out of mind concept. Another good hiding place for non-perishables is the trunk of Bill’s car. LOL!
I’m like Debby sometimes in that I watch the clock a lot, waiting for the time I’ve given myself “permission” to eat. Then there are times when I’m like Cammy, and for whatever reason, a “safe” food is no longer safe. What IS that dang switch? Almonds have been my downfall lately. As I posted in Cammy’s last blog, proportion has “fallen sloppy dead” (from “Go Ask Alice” by Jefferson Airplane). What do you mean a cup of almonds isn’t a portion size?