1. Weight Loss: Tipping the Scales in Your Favor

145. Don’t Let Appetite Triggers Shoot Down Your Diet

When you eat may be influenced by triggers or cues in the environment. Perhaps you associate eating with events like watching television, talking with friends, or reading. Over time, responding to such frequent cues can lead to weight gain.

The following behavior changes can help to eliminate eating cues that can sabotage your diet.

1. •To make you more aware of your eating cues, keep a diet diary, noting where you were and what you were doing when you ate.
   

2. •Eat in only one room of the house.
   

3. •Eat each meal at the same time each day.
   

4. •Don’t do anything else while you’re eating,
   

5. •When you go to parties, focus your attention on the guests, entertainment, surroundings-anything but food and beverages. (See Tip 139.)
   

6. •Turn down the volume or switch channels during food commercials on television to help you tune out eating cues.