I'm normally quite intelligent, however, when it comes to my eating habits sometimes it's another story. My ability to irrationally-rationalize is quite strong. For example, in my mind there are certain calories that just don't count. Eating in the car, eating standing up, bites of someone else's food, samples at the grocery store, bites while I am preparing a meal, liquid calories and anything after 10pm don't count.

My way seems logical until you really stop to think about the fact that all those calories that don't count can add up to several hundred calories a day. As much as I would love my ever-favorite Carmel-Mocha Frappacino to have no calories, in reality, it has as many calories as an entire small meal.

There are other things to take into account when eating as well. One of my favorite things to do was to skip a meal or simply stave of hunger for as long as humanly possible thinking I was eating less during the day. That would be great if I didn't end up eating more than normal because I was ravenous.

When you have waited too long to eat and are starving as you drive home, this may, in fact, not be the best time to drive through your favorite fast food joint, which usual sang to me during these times. Before I knew it I had finished the burger, half the fries and most of the shake without even thinking.

Or if you have just gotten home and are eating as you stand in front of the fridge with no plate or utensil in sight, you may be encouraging a slow, sneaky binge and setting yourself up to consume several times more calories than you want to or even would if you'd just make a plate.

This was the kind of thing I was doing on a regular basis. I would come home, get out the cheese, the crackers, some peanut butter and start to eat while I was preparing my dinner. I didn't even realize what I was doing until I read a great book called "Lose Weight Naturally."

"Lose Weight Naturally" gives many great tips on how to eat. For example, if you want to eat, actually make it a meal; put it on a plate, get some silverware and sit down, don't do anything else and enjoy it. This is actually a much more enjoyable way to eat than shoveling food into your mouth with your fingers while talking to your sister on the phone.

As I started to pay attention to my eating habits I found that when I would eat in front of the fridge, on the phone or driving home that I didn't really notice that I was eating, which often lead to more eating later. I never felt as full after absent-mindedly eating as I did when I took the time to sit down and eat.

Before you even say it, you DO have time to prepare your food. I know the "I don't have time" routine and I did it to. But if you figure in the amount of time it takes to eat everything in the fridge, then feel awful about it, then throw it all up, then feel awful about that, you have time to prepare a more nutritional meal, sit down and eat it.

Besides, one of the things I had to learn was that I needed to practice making time for myself. If I could make time for everyone else but couldn't make time to make myself a decent meal, what was I doing?