I have always been guilty of food “sniping” when it comes to trying to lose weight. I’m sure I’m far from alone on this one, we’ve all done it and it needs to stop. What the heck is food sniping you ask? Food sniping is picking off little bits of food here and there, mostly stuff you shouldn’t be eating but you justify it by telling yourself a little lie that goes something like this “Oh, this one cookie won’t make a difference…” or “I can have a couple of croutons in my salad, it won’t make a bit of difference”.

These little lies might actually be true if it was an experience that was seldom done, but the thing about sniping food is that it might start with tidbits of food here and there, but the more you do it the more often you do and the bigger quantities you take. Sooner or later you’ll find yourself eating a ton of stuff and you aren’t even going to be aware of how much it really is because that little lie you told yourself while you are eating it some how works on your brain to erase the memory of it. This is why so many weight loss programs involve journaling your food intake.

I’m guilty of it as of late and I’m writing about it now to expose my little secret so I will stop doing it before it gets to a point where it is affecting my weight loss. I am guilty of eating some croutons this past week on a salad, not just one or two but a bunch. That is a big no-no when you are on Medifast, a plan which relies heavily on a strict reduction in carbs in order to keep the body in a state of ketosis. Some other examples of food sniping might include eating stray froot loops that fall out of the bowl when you’re making your kid breakfast or having a “bite” of something laying around the kitchen, like cake. There are dozens of ways to snipe food and each one of them involves you telling yourself a little lie, saying to yourself “That little piece of food doesn’t count and won’t hurt me”.

The truth is it all adds up and for me, it paints a bigger picture of how I got fat in the first place. There are many lies fat people tell ourselves about how we look, what we eat, how much we eat, etc. There are dozens of partial truths that go along with the excess tonnage. For me, part of the healing process is admitting to myself that I’m not honest about food. I’m telling the world because it is one bad habit I really need to break myself of if I’m going to have any chance of being successful. I know the Medifast Program works if I work it. I will be successful if I can conquer all of those bad habits that made me the way I am to begin with.

I know it’s hard, if it was easy there wouldn’t be a thousand gimmicks and fad diets out there trying to convince us that you can lose weight without changing your diet or exercise routine, but by simply taking a pill. If it were easy, cabbage would be flying off the shelf and cabbage soup would be the most consumed food in the world. But the reality is weight loss is difficult. It isn’t difficult from a physiological stand point… as I maintained from early on, I’m a big believer in the basic premise that you can’t gain weight unless you are over-eating for your size, metabolism and activity level. Where it is hard is in the mental aspects. To succeed we need to be honest with ourselves and we need to identify and stop those habits which are killing us.

So as of today, I give up on food sniping for good. If it isn’t part of a meal I should be eating, I’m not going to eat it. The stray bits of kids’ cereal can go right back in the bowl or in the garbage. I will not lie to myself about what I eat.