Danger Foods

Hi all,

Do you have those certain foods that you just can't say no to? I know I do, and it's not just an issue with not saying no, but not staying stop either.

Portion control was one of the first things I tackled, when I started counting calories and losing weight. I got into a habit of weighing things before eating them, and making sure I counted accurately. 

There are just a few problems. I have certain foods that I can't seem to stop myself eating, and in quantities that are not diet friendly.

There are really three main ones I have.

• Chocolate

A dieters nightmare! It tastes so amazing, and yet it really isn't a great use of my calories. Currently I'm on 1200 calories a day, and using 200-300 of those on one small bar, that isn't going to fill me up and doesn't offer much in the way of nutrition. That's not a great idea.

Still, I can't cut it out of my diet. Did I mention how amazing it tastes? So I do still eat it, more than once a week, and for the most part I make sure I count it in my calories and choose bars that have the lowest amount of calories in them.

The problem comes on those days when a bar of chocolate, will end up taking me over my calories. I have the mindset of thinking I can just eat it, go over my calories and work it off another day. If there's a bar of chocolate offered to me, I don't even think about calories, I just eat it. 

This is something I really need to work on.

• Roast Potatoes

It doesn't matter if they're homemade, or frozen ones. When I have a roast dinner, roast potatoes are always a part of it, and I love them. 

When I'm in charge of cooking, I've managed to become pretty good at limiting how many go onto my plate. Two is my limit and I'm strict about it.

The problem comes when it's someone else's night to cook. The other night, my sister cooked and when my plate came to me, there were FIVE potatoes on my plate. This was on a night when I hadn't counted for any on my tracker, because I've been going on and off low carb for a while. So I didn't have the calories for any of them, so I should have left them. If I couldn't leave them, I should have limited myself to one, two tops. I didn't. I ate all five, went over my calories and felt stuffed afterwards.

From now on, what I know I need to do is to stay in control of my portions. If it's not my night to cook, I need to either be in the kitchen when it's being dished up, or I need to make sure the person cooking knows how much I can have. If I don't, then whatever is on my plate, will end up being eaten.

• Pasta

I discovered while doing low carb, that cars are pretty much my favorite thing to eat as you may have guessed from the three foods I've listed as my danger foods.

Pasta is definitely one of my danger foods. It's very similar to the potatoes. I will eat whatever portion is dished up, because it's one of my favorite foods.

The solution is very much the same as with the potatoes. I need to make a plan of how much I can have within my daily allowance, and then make sure that's what ends up on my plate.

Do you have any danger foods that you can't control yourself around? What are your tips for quelling that urge to splurge?