Things You'll Need:
- will power
- positive attitude
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Step 1
One of the first steps to help maintain healthy eating habits when you are cooking is to drink 1 or 2 glasses of water before beginning to cook, this can trick your stomach by giving you that semi-full feeling. It will discourage you from too much snacking. The kitchen is one of the most dangerous places to be when you are hungry, especially if you are the cook. Being hungry at the dinner table is much different from being in the kitchen and having the entire pantry at your mercy.
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Step 2
Hide all of the unhealthy snacks, put them out of reach, and out of site or just don't buy them. The best thing is to avoid anything that will promote the desire to snack. One of the worst things is to have an open bag of snacks out on the counter. It is so easy to mindlessly eat handful after handful of junk food every time you pass by the open bag.
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Step 3
Have fresh carrot sticks, or some other type of fresh produce available to snack on instead. If you are starving and dinner is going to take you a while this is a great snack to allow yourself. This is a low calorie snack that will ease your hunger so that you do not over eat at dinner time as a result of waiting so long to eat.
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Step 4
If there is another member of the family in the kitchen who is tempting you, perhaps by standing there eating a bag of potato chips, let them know that they are making it hard for you to stay on your diet. Offer them some of you carrot sticks and send them on their way.
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Step 5
Another strange but sometimes effective way to avoid snacking is to brush your teeth and gargle with mouthwash. Having a clean minty fresh mouth is a comfortable feeling and snacking would taint this feeling. As unusual as this sounds many people find that they prefer to keep their clean mouth as long as possible. This concept is similar to people going on a first date and wanting to make sure their breath stays minty fresh. Another reason this works is a strong minty flavor can make certain snacks taste really bad. One example would be drinking orange juice right after brushing your teeth.
