If you have been following the keto diet, or just about any type of diet, then you will eventually reach a point where you weight loss stalls. You might even begin to regain weight. There’s lots of reasons that may contribute to this but mindless eating if often to blame.
What is mindless eating?
Mindless eating is when you eat something without putting much thought into it and while you are not hungry.
I call mindless eating drive by snacking. It’s the snacking that happens when you just grab a few pieces of something as you walk by. It’s just a few pieces right? What could it hurt? Usually it doesn’t do much unless you keep repeating it. This is when mindless eating begins to add up.
I know this all too well. Back in the pre-low carb days I’ve personally walked by a candy dish with M&M’s taking a small amount each time. A short time later half the dish is gone and there’s no one around eating them except for me!
Now that I’m following a low carb way of eating almonds, cheese, jerky and other food items seen as “keto friendly” have become the drive by snacking items.
I know I’ve mindlessly snacked on all of these items and many more over the years. Any time I see the scale starting to move upwards and stay there I start to pay attention to what I’m eating and quite often discover I’ve been drive by snacking.
Keto foods are often high calorie density foods as they are higher in fat. Small amounts of these foods will contribute more calories than you think. A 1 ounce serving of almond nuts is only 23 nuts. Who eats just 23 of them?
I don’t know about you but I usually take a handful of them if I grab some for a snack. I stopped to check and found that each handful contained 40 or more nuts. What I thought was a “serving” was actually closer to two servings.
How about you? How many nuts do you actually get in a handful?
I know the Keto/low carb world likes to pretend that calories don’t count.
At the end of the day they do!
If you eat more calories than your body needs to burn, even if it is low carb/no carb filled items, YOU WILL GAIN WEIGHT over time! Mindless eating does add up.
But don’t take my word for it. Just take a look at your own diet. Has your weight loss stalled? Have you started to regain weight? Then excessive, mindless snacking could be a culprit.
How to you stop mindless eating?
Start be being more mindful of what you eat and what size it is. Tracking your eating habits and food intake can be helpful. Try recording what you are eating daily in an app, a small notebook or a daily planner. Mindful eating can help with losing weight and preventing weight loss stalls.
If you use an app pay attention to the calories as well as your macros.
Cut back on the amount of fat you consume allows your body to use the extra you carry around to fuel itself which helps you to lose weight.
If you are tracking carbs check out the carbs found in nuts. This is one area that many people admit to not measuring out and, on the keto diet, people will often snack on nuts more frequently then in their pre-keto days. Plus many keto baked goods are made from ground nut flour. This is one area that can easily be controlled.
Have you been regaining weight or are going through a weight stall?
Have you started tracking what you are eating?
Did you find any areas in which you were eating more than you thought?
Here are some easy keto recipes that you might enjoy:
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I can relate to mindless eating, I do it all the time unfortunately. One of the worst habits I have is having a snack near the computer when I’m blogging. OMG, it’s gone before I even finish writing a post….
This is good information. I am trying to have better quality snack foods available for emergencies.