1. Constant snacking on high calorie food / Absent or mindless eating 🍪🍫🍬🍡🍦🍨🍭🍟
You don’t have to eat large amounts of food to take in much calories. Some foods or snacks carry lots of calories in very small quantities. You can check the nutritional information on packaged snacks to know how much calories you are taking in. Try to avoid unpackaged snacks as you may not be able to calculate the amount of calories in it.
Some people just like to chew something to keep busy. Maybe when you’re reading or watching a movie. Worse if you are binge watching a series because you end up eating throughout the movie.
However, if you feel the need to snack on something without eating excess calories, you can opt for fruits, nuts or vegetables such as carrots, cashew nut, almond nut, groundnut, cucumber, corn, garden egg, macadamia nut, etc. When eating these foods, eat them in small quantities (like one nut at a time) as they still contain calories.
2. Lack of sleep / Too much sleep😨😨😪😪
Sleep is very important in achieving a healthy weight and body. However, it should be in moderation. You should feel energetic and alert after a good sleep. If you feel tired, groggy, or weak 5 minutes after waking up, you’re either sick or you over/under slept.
While too much sleep reduces the activity of the body, too little sleep induces stress in the body which can lead to weight gain.
You should sleep for 6-8hours on an average day. 45mins-1hr30mins in the afternoon and 6-8hrs in the night.
Contact your doctor if you can’t help sleeping too much or you can’t seem to fall asleep.
3. Regular consumption of alcohol🍸🍺🍻🍷🍹
It’s okay to take a glass of wine or a cold bear once in a while, let’s say once a month. If possible, not at all. Apart from it being bad for your liver, alcohol causes weight gain by increasing appetite, impulsive snacking and giving excess calories. It also decreases the breakdown of fat and increases fat deposition under the skin especially in the abdomen (tummy).
4. Eating out🍩🍖🍔🍟🍕🍛
A lot of the foods made in restaurants have not just very high calories, but also unhealthy components. Most of them are made with too much transfat (which is very bad for the heart and vessels and causes weight gain), sugar and seasonings to make their foods taste better. All these are unhealthy for the human body and they do much more than cause weight gain.
You can limit yourself from eating restaurant foods regularly to at least once a month.
5. Too much partying/outings💃💅🎉🍸🍨🍻🍰🍔🎊
If you’re the kind of person to host or get invited to events, you’re most likely going to eat a lot of unhealthy foods and even alcohol than you would normally take if you stayed at home. If you cannot restrain yourself from these foods, it is better not to go at all.
6. Rushing meals
A lot of people are on this table, especially when we’re hungry. Well not me, I’m a slow eater.
It takes about 20mins for your brain to realize you’re full, so when you rush your meal, you end up eating a lot more than you need.
Be patient with your food, it’s not running away. Eat with a small spoon if you can’t help eating a large amount at once. Try to chew your food almost completely. Take sips of water in between. These can help you to eat slower.
7. Using too much oil in foods/ over-using oil🍔🍕🍗🍳🍟
Even though there are oils that contain good fat, they still contain calories and using more than you need can cause weight gain.
When frying foods that don’t need much oil, such as eggs, you need just a little oil. You can avoid deep frying and bake or roast some foods instead. If you must deep fry, maybe plantain for example, put it in a kitchen towel so most of the oil soak out.
8. Watching food shows 💻📱
How?! Ola, How?!
If you’re like me, you love watching food network or other food channels. Why is that a ‘bad’ habit you ask me? Well if you’re really like me, you’d love to try out the foods you see on them. The thing is I don’t have most of the equipments or ingredients so I end up not trying them. If you know you’re likely to try those foods, just find another channel to love.
