Derail. You know the word. Let's face it, most of us working toward good health through diet and exercise have an intimate relationship with the word. Diet derailers are everywhere -- in your house, in the grocery store, at work, at play, in your head even. Here, we'll address the very things that throw us off course. Together, we'll learn how to avoid our diet traps -- and how to get back on track when we can't.
If you're gaining weight or not losing it as quickly as you'd like, despite your best intentions, you may have eating amnesia. Also called mindless eating, this condition might have you grabbing at chips throughout your entire favorite TV show, cleaning your kids' dinner plates, or sampling the dough of every Christmas cookie you'll soon be manufacturing in bulk. These stolen bites and tastes may seem harmless, but they can lead to a calorie overdose, which can lead to -- yikes! -- a weight overload.

Mindless eating happens when you're distracted or otherwise not paying attention to your consumption behaviors. They key, then, is to avoid eating when your mind is elsewhere. Sitting at your computer right now? Get rid of that bowl full of M&Ms. Reading your favorite book? Put the pretzels in the pantry. Got a plate full of pastries at your board meeting? Say "no thanks" and get on with business.

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If you're overweight, chances are you eat mindlessly. Not only do you serve yourself differently than people of normal weight, but also you eat differently.

That's the word from researchers at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, who have determined that when it comes to buffets, obese people sit closer to the food -- and even try to face it -- as well as chew less so they can eat more food faster.

Led by Brian Wansink, director of the Cornell Food and Brand Lab and author of the book Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think, the team observed 213 diners at 11 different all-you-can-eat restaurants across the United States. They observed the following:

• 42 percent of obese people positioned themselves so they were facing the buffet, compared with 27 percent of normal-weight people.
• The obese participants sat an average of 16 feet closer to the food.
• 38 percent of normal-weight diners sat at a booth, compared to 16 percent of obese people.
• While 71 percent of the normal-weight people browsed at the buffet before choosing food, only 33 percent of the obese people did this.
• Those with body-mass indices in the normal range were also 2.5 times more likely to use chopsticks.
  
  

When food is more convenient, people tend to eat more," said co-author Collin R. Payne of New Mexico State University. "These seemingly subtle differences in behavior and environment may cause people to overeat without even realizing it."

The study findings were published in the journal Obesity.

--From the Editors at Netscape

I heard an interesting statistic while watching The View the other day: Every bite of food averages 25 calories. That means if you have eight mindless bites of food throughout the day, you're adding at least an extra 200 calories to your daily intake. Have 20 mindless bites over the course of the day? You're looking at an extra 500 calories. We keep track of how many calories we eat at meals, but we don't think of all the bites here and there, and it could be costing us our waistlines.

So here's an idea: In your daytimer, on your desk or on the whiteboard in the kitchen, keep a small tally of the non-meal bites you take during the day. A few crackers here, a handful of almonds there -- it can really add up, especially if you're going to a social event with finger food.

The point of all this? To keep track of all the extra calories you're consuming. You might be surprised by the final count!

If you're a nighttime snacker, you could be adding hundreds of unnecessary calories to your day. It's easy to fall into mindless eating when you're sitting in front of the TV or the computer, and diet experts often recommend that if you are going to snack to pre-portion your food ahead of time to keep from, for example, eating an entire bag of chips.

But if nighttime snacking really seems to be affecting your eating habits, a better solution might be to pick an hour to shut down your kitchen for the night. Tell yourself that once it's closed, there's no going back in for snacks and you might just eliminate those late-night calories for good.

When it's cold out and there's not much to do beyond hole up in front of the TV with a few good movies, it's important to be aware of what you're putting into your mouth. Mindless eating--done when you're focused on something else--can lead to a lot of excess calorie intake, and you'll wind up putting on extra unwanted pounds.

How to avoid mindless eating? Everyday Health has some great tips:

• Watch the containers. Bring a big bowl of chips to the table and you're likely to eat the whole thing without thinking. Instead, bring a small one and you won't feel bad when you polish it off.
  
• Read the labels and pay attention to serving sizes. Yes, a serving of chocolate rasins might only have 100 calories, but this 'serving' might only be 10 raisins.
• Remind yourself of how much you've eaten. Keep your empty wrappers around -- the guilt of seeing 10 candy bar wrappers on the table might help you keep things in perspective.
  

Want more tips? Click here.

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Although the Christmas holiday is now over, another big food day is coming early next week -- New Year's. Many of us ate way too much in the last three days or so, and we'll compound it by gorging next week as well. That is, unless you can find a way to have fun and not go overboard.

Is it hard to enjoy holiday meals in moderation? Not really, although the methods used by many of us are hard to swallow for many others.

Instead of eating so much, eat a moderate level and supplement that with drinking large amounts of water. It will give you something to do while engaging with all those holiday cheer-filled guests while not over-enjoying too much food.

Sound boring? It's not -- nobody will even notice since you're socially engaged with food or drink. Who says that it has to be third and fourth helpings of stuffing, though?

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One of the problems with holiday weight gain lies not so much in the meal itself -- after all, how much can you really eat in a sitting? (Wait, don't answer that.) -- but in the fact that delicious, delectable goodies are lying around all weekend long It's hard not to reach out and try a bite of this or put a little extra of that on your plate. I'm all for indulging a little on special occasions, but if you find yourself putting on a little weight every time a party or holiday gets together rolls around, it might be time to think about what you're eating.

Mindless eating is a problem year round, but it can be especially problematic over the holidays. MSNBC has a few quick tips to help you be a little more mindful about what your body is telling you eat:

• Wear a belt. If not a belt, at least a snuggish pair of pants (and leave them buttoned). When you're full, excuse yourself and resist reaching for seconds.
• Put your calories toward your favorite items and things that you don't get to eat every day. That way, you'll still feel like you're celebrating and not depriving yourself.
• Take small portions the first time around. If you need to go back for more, a second small portion will do, but chances are that those two servings are smaller than the large first serving you'd typically take.
• Forgo the late night turkey sandwich and eat a piece of fruit or some carrots from the veggie tray instead.
  

Have a happy and healthy Thanksgiving!

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Brian Wansink knows food behavior. He directs Cornell University's Food and Brand Lab, authored "Mindless Eating" and spent hours watching people's food choices in and out of the home.

We may think we overeat if we're super hungry or the food is tasty, but according to Wansink, that's a bunch of hooey. He says visibility and convenience are the most influential motivators. Get that candy jar out of your office -- out of sight, out of reach, out of mind. In one fascinating experiment, Wansink placed candy jars stuffed with chocolate in employees' cubicles for a month. Then he moved the jars a mere six feet farther away. Subjects chowed down five more candies daily (125 calories) when the jar was nearby. I was never one to turn down the candy jar, unless it sat in the office of a supervisor I didn't like. Then I would walk more than six feet and pounce when they went to lunch!

Take that Lazy Susan off your dinner table, too. Do people still have those serving circles? Wansink states you'll consume more food if you eat "family style", directly from a bag/carton, from a big plate/container, in front of the TV, in the car or with friends. I relish the days before kids when I could totally control what food sat in the pantry. I buy plenty of healthy fruits/veggies, but the kids' treats beckon to me every day.

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Have you been dieting for years with no luck? By now you're probably blaming anything and everything for your lack of weight-loss -- your job, your metabolism, your spouse, etc -- anything as long as you don't have to look inwards and place the blame on yourself to realize that you're not giving it your all.

WebMD has put together a list of the top reasons you're not losing weight:

• You eat too fast
• You skip meals
• You drink too many calories and think they don't count because they're liquid
• Your portions are too big
• You underestimate the calorie value of add-ons like salad dressing and sauce.
  
• You engage in 'mindless eating'

I myself am guilty of a few of these. If you are too, don't beat yourself up, but do look at changing these habits ... doing so might mean you're finally able to loss weight successfully.

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Recognizing true hunger signals is difficult for many people. I don't know about you, but if I only ate when I was truly hungry I think I'd drop weight without hardly trying. I'm horribly prone to cravings, and I also just really love to eat. It's good times! But good times aren't always good times in terms of being healthy for you, so it's important not to indulge every time you feel like it. But sometimes it's so hard to resist, and you can bet more than just hunger pains are contributing. The way you think about food and how you feel about eating play a huge part in your failure or success at getting to (and maintaining) a healthy weight. Figuring out just what part they're playing can really help you figure out why you eat the way you do, and help you start to control it.

These steps will help you get started:

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We all overeat sometimes. We might think it's because the food is great, or we're hungry, or celebrating, or bored, or sad. Think again, says Brian Wansink. In fact, we are surrounded by hidden factors that operate below our conscious radar: powerful cues, illusions, and eating scripts that have us licking our plates and loosening our belts before we know it. Entertaining and illuminating, Wansink's book Mindless Eating offers practical solutions for avoiding these hidden traps and shows how to enjoy food more -- without mindlessly putting on the pounds.

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