I try my hardest to keep junk food out of the house. If it’s around, and I see it, I’m much more tempted to have a little sneak.

A little bit of junk food once in a while isn’t a problem. The problem is when you keep saying, “I’ll just have a bit,” over and over again. When you add up those little “bits” of calories, chances are you end up overeating — and gaining weight.

What I’ve started doing is playing peek-a-boo with the junk food — only I don’t play the full game: I keep the food hidden! Out of sight, out of mind definitely works for me. My hubby loves to buy dark chocolate and it’s been creeping into the house more and more often. So I’ve taken to hiding it in the back of the food cupboard. If he wants it, he can go look for it!

What’s great about this “out of sight, out of mind” method is that science backs it up! I found out about one particular study, titled “The office candy dish: proximity’s influence on estimated and actual consumption” through Burn the Fat Inner Circle. (The Inner Circle is fat loss guru Tom Venuto’s fitness membership site — tons of articles, discussion forums, audio Q & A and more. Read my review here, if you want to find out more: Burn the Fat Inner Circle - Review).

This particular study showed that when a candy dish was in view, and close to the subjects, they tended to not only eat more candy, but they thought they were eating less candy than they actually were. They were underestimating the amount they were eating!

And the kicker? When the food was hidden and further away, not only did they eat less, but they thought they ate more of the candy than they actually did. I don’t know about you, but when I think that I’m overeating, I’ll eat better at the next meal.

To some of you, the “out of sight, out of mind” might be an obvious thing. But for those of you who haven’t thought about it, look around you and get anything that’s tempting out of your sight!

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Special Note: If you’re interested, you can read Tom Venuto’s take on the candy dish study here — but you need to be a member of the Inner Circle. I’ve been a member since January 2008, and at $9.95 a month, it’s well worth the price. Tom’s always adding new articles, e-books, audio interviews, and lots more. His 3 part Burn the Fat Show series on goal setting changed my way of thinking about fat loss, and helped me to lose 6% body fat in 12 weeks…

You can check out the quality of Tom’s articles — he lets people have a free preview of some of the articles: Free Preview of Burn the Fat Inner Circle Articles

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Eat better, move more, and believe in yourself!

(About Me)