Dieting your butt off, but still not able to lose all the pounds? It could be you're eating more than you realize!

    How is that possible, you say? Experts report it's easier than you think, thanks to our "hefty habits" -- unconscious pairings of food with activities that sometimes cause us to eat more than we realize.

    "Too often we eat on 'auto pilot' -- we associate food with certain activities or even times of the day, and without really paying attention to how much we're consuming, we overeat, " says Warren Huberman, PhD, a psychologist with the NYU medical program for surgical weight loss.

    Whether it's subconsciously crunching chips while surfing the Net, grabbing that 20-ounce bottle of soda every time the phone rings, or sometimes, just automatically pairing two foods together -- like reaching for a chocolate doughnut every time you smell your morning coffee -- experts say old habits die hard, even when we're on a diet.

    "Your brain stores things in a way that makes life easy for you, so if you do things in a certain manner a number of times your brain says, 'OK this is how we do things'; when those habits include food, overeating can become a simple matter of unconscious association," says Huberman.

    Weight control psychologist Abby Aronowitz, PhD agrees: "If a response to a stimulus is rewarded continually, that response quickly becomes connected to the stimulus. So if you always reward the thought of having a cup of coffee with reaching for a doughnut, than those two thoughts become connected in your mind," says Aronowitz, author of Your Final Diet.

    But it's not just associations that are set in our brain. It's also cravings. Huberman tells WebMD that if, for example, we have that coffee and doughnut together enough times, not only are we conditioned to reach for those two items together, our brain actually sets up a craving system to ensure that's what we do.

    "This means if you have coffee and a doughnut every morning for 90 straight mornings, on the 91st morning when you pour that cup of coffee, you are going to be craving a doughnut because those two foods are linked in your brain," says Huberman.

    Cravings, he says, are not random, but rather learned. "You never crave foods you have not tasted. You have to learn certain things in order for your brain to crave it, and when you repeat something enough times the craving becomes part of your brain's repertoire," he says.

    Breaking the Chains That Bind

    Because the first step to breaking any habit is a desire to break it, motivational psychologist Paul P. Baard, PhD, says it's important to understand why you want to change.

    "The building platform is always motivation -- and in order to make it work, the motivation must be intrinsic. The change has to represent benefits you want," says Baard, an associate professor at Fordham University in New York City.

    If you're simply trying to please a spouse, a parent, or even your doctor, Baard says success will be harder to achieve.

    Once you're clear on your motivations, experts say the next step is to identify where your hefty habits really lie.

    "Do you always plop down on the same spot on the couch, with the same television show on and the same bowl of chips in your hand?" asks Huberman. If so, he says it's a good bet you will eat all the chips, even if you didn't plan on doing so.

    "Behavioral eating really is a lot like links in a chain; when you continually find yourself in a situation that is conducive to eating, or conducive to eating a particular food, and you follow through by eating that food, you reinforce a chain link of behaviors that is very much like being on autopilot, says Huberman.

    To begin to change that behavior, he says, break just one link in the chain.

    "Change the time you eat, the TV show you are watching, the bowl you put the chips in - eat with your left hand instead of your right hand. The point is to make your brain work a little so that every bite you take is a conscious decision and not a learned, automatic behavior," says Huberman.

    What can also help: Keeping a food diary, and then studying it to see how you may be associating certain foods not so much with hunger, but with activities, events, or even times of the day.

    "A lot of people eat by external cues. They see a clock and they eat, they hear a theme song come on the TV and they eat, a lot of eating is based on associations and not really hunger," says Huberman.

    Substitute Good Habits for Bad Ones

    While changing environmental cues is one approach, another is to keep the habit but try to make it healthier.

    "As a strategy it's known as behavioral intervention. You substitute something that is good for you and that you like for something that is not so good for you, but you also like," says Aronowitz.

    So if, for example, you always have a glass of milk and chocolate chip cookies before going to bed, when bedtime rolls around keep the milk, the glass, the cookie plate, and the place where you normally have the snack all the same -- but substitute a chocolate graham cracker for the high-fat, high-calorie cookie.

    "In this way you won't be putting too much strain on your brain. Your habit will be similar, so it's easy to accept, yet different enough to take you out of autopilot and have an impact on your weight loss," says Huberman.

    Once that happens, Baard says environmental influences will kick in to help form a new habit. "It's going to take some discipline, but if you can just make that one initial break in your habit, those environmental changes will begin reinforcing a new behavior in your brain," he says.

    That said, Huber also reminds us that we have to be willing to tolerate a little bit of discomfort every time a habit is changed.

    "It doesn't have to be pain, you don't have to be miserable, but you do have to stretch out your comfort zone and recognize that you are going to feel out of sorts until the new behavior pattern is created," says Huberman.

    Baard tells WebMD you make the whole process easier if you find a sense of satisfaction in breaking your food habit.

    "You want to feel good about yourself, you want to know that food is not telling you what to do, that you can do with food whatever you choose," says Baard. This, he says, is calming to the brain and can help balance the discomfort you feel from veering from the familiar to new, uncharted territories.

    Overcoming Food Habits: Some Practical Tips

    While changing the way we think -- and the associations we make -- may seem hard, changing our actual behavior may be easier than we think. To help you get started, here are six things you can do right now to put change in motion.

    1. Eat anything you want -- but always do it sitting at the kitchen or dining room table. "Changing not the foods you eat, but where you eat them, will help break some of the association with that food, which in turn may help alter how much and how often you eat it," says Huberman.

    2. Change anything about your food habit you can, including the way you eat it. "If you always hold the ice cream spoon in your right hand, hold it in your left; if you always eat out of the container, put it in a bowl. The idea here is to take yourself off autopilot so you begin to think about what you are eating and why you are eating it," says Huberman.

    3. Avoid visual cues that tell you to eat. 'If you always think of eating a candy bar every time you pass the vending machine, consciously go out of your way not to pass the vending machine," says Aronowitz. The same is true if TV is your food trigger. "Make a point not to eat in front of the television -- or change the channel away from the show you always associate with that pizza or bowl of chips," she says.

    4. Institute the '15 minute' rule. As soon as you get a "cue" to eat, train yourself to wait just 15 minutes before you do. Aronowitz says this will help break the automatic response cycle in your brain that, ultimately, helps cancel out the old associations.

    5. Don't try to break all your nasty food habits at once. "If you do, your level of discomfort will grow so high that your brain will immediately regress to that state which is most comfortable," says Baard. At the same time, working on just one or two food habits will allow your brain enough of a comfort zone to allow you to cope with, and eventually learn, the new behavior.

    6. Make eating a sole focus activity and give it your full concentration. "Put down the BlackBerry, step away from the computer, get off the telephone, and just concentrate on eating," says Huberman. The more you disassociate food with other activities, the more likely you are to not allow outside cues to dictate where and when and how much you eat.

    拼命節食，仍然無法減掉體重？可能你吃掉的食物遠比你想象的多！你會說：怎么可能呢？專家告訴我們，如果你有以下這個"惡習",這是很可能的：無意識地把做事和吃東西聯系在一起，一邊做事一邊吃東西，這時我們吃的東西遠比想象的多。

    Warren Huberman博士說："吃東西時我們經常會處于'自動駕駛狀態'--把某件事甚至是某個時間點和食物聯系起來，一邊做其他事，一邊吃東西，沒有注意自己消耗掉多少食物而吃過量。"他是紐約大學手術減肥項目的心理學家。

    不管是在上網沖浪時大嚼薯片，或是電話鈴響起時就抓起大罐蘇打水，或者自動把兩種食物聯系在一起，比如每天早晨聞到咖啡味時就會伸手去拿油炸巧克力餅……專家說老習慣很難改變，即使我們正在節食。

    Huberman博士說："人的大腦會記憶使你生活舒適的東西，所以如果同樣的事情重復幾遍，你的大腦就會說"好，我們就這么做。"當這些習慣包括食物時，飲食過度就會成為一種無意識的事情。"

    體重控制心理學家 Abby Aronowitz博士贊同這種說法："如果對某種刺激所做出的反應不斷得到獎勵，那種反應很快就會與這種刺激聯系在一起。所以如果如果你總是在喝咖啡時吃巧克力餅，這兩種習慣在你的頭腦中就會關聯在一起。"

    但這還不只是我們頭腦中的關聯。這還是一種強烈的渴望。Huberman告訴我們，如果我們總是喝咖啡時吃巧克力餅，我們的大腦會產生強烈的渴望，保證我們每次都會這么做。

    Huberman說："這意味著如果你連續90個早晨都喝咖啡，吃巧克力餅，那么第91天你給自己倒咖啡時，你就會有一種強烈的渴望想要吃到巧克力餅，因為你的大腦已經將這兩種食物關聯起來。"

    他說，這種渴望不是隨機的，而是學會的。"你決不會渴望吃自己從沒吃過的東西。只有學過的東西大腦才能知道，而當你重復一定次數以后，這種渴望就變成你大腦中菜單的一部分。"

    打破這種聯系

    想要改掉某種習慣，第一步就是要有改正的愿望。你必須理解改正習慣的重要性。動機心理學家Paul P. Baard說："一切行為都源于動機，并且這種動機必須發自內心才能有效。改變習慣必須能給你帶來好處。"Paul P. Baard是紐約福特漢姆大學的副教授。

    他說，如果你只是想要討好配偶、父母，甚至是你的一生，這種改變就更難達成。一旦你清楚了自己的動機，下一步就要明白自己的惡習是什么。

    Huberman問： "你是不是總是蜷縮在沙發的同一個位置，看同一個電視頻道，手里拿著同樣一盒薯片？"如果確實如此，你肯定會吃光所有的薯片，即使你原本沒有這個打算。 "一邊做某事一邊吃東西就像是鏈條的一環，當你在某種情形下總會吃東西，或者總是吃同樣的東西，那你就加強了這種反應，就如同自動駕駛一般。"

    他說，要改變這種行為，就要打破鏈條中的某個環節。"改變吃東西的時間，改變所看得電視節目，用左手代替右手抓薯片吃。關鍵是要使用一下自己的大腦，你做的這些事都是有意識的，而不是無意識的機械行為。"

    這些也會對你有所幫助：記錄下所吃的食物，然后想想看哪些食物不是在感覺餓了才吃，而是在做某些事情時吃的。

    Huberman說："很多人受到外部刺激時就會吃東西。他們看表時吃東西，電視播放某個節目時吃東西，很多時候吃東西不是與饑餓聯系起來，而是與其他某些事情相聯系。"

    用好習慣代替壞習慣

    改變環境只是方法之一，另一個方法是使習慣變得更健康。

    Aronowitz說："一個策略是行為干預。用某些對你有益的事情來代替不健康的習慣。"

    比如，如果你睡前總是喝杯牛奶，吃巧克力餅干，那么你可以改變一下，睡前準備好牛奶、平常盛放巧克力餅干的盤子、牛奶杯，并且將它們都放在原來的位置，一切都保持原樣，但是將高脂肪、高熱量的巧克力餅換乘全麥餅干。

    "這樣你就不會給自己太多壓力。你的習慣還是像以前一樣，但更容易接受，并且不會影響你減肥。"

    這樣有助于你養成新的習慣。"這需要一點自律，但是一旦你開始改變，這種環境有助于你做出新的改變。同時Huber博士也提醒，每次改變自己的習慣時我們可能要稍稍容忍它所帶來的不適。"你不會難過，不會痛苦，但是你可能會很想像以前一樣想讓自己更舒服一點。

    Baard博士告訴我們，改變所帶來的滿足感可能會使這一過程更加容易。

    "你感覺自己很棒，你知道自己不會受到食物的誘惑，你可以自主選擇食物。"這有助于你克服改變習慣過程中的不適感。

    養成良好飲食習慣的一些有用提示

    改變飲食中的惡習聽起來很難，但實際做起來會容易些。以下六個小提示有助于你養成良好的飲食習慣：

    1、可以吃想吃的東西，但是請在餐廳、坐在餐桌前吃。不改變你的食物，僅僅改變吃飯的地方，同樣會打破你以前養成的不好習慣，使自己不會過度飲食。

    2、改變吃飯的方式。如果你吃冰淇淋時總是右手拿勺，那就換成左手；如果你總是用手抓著吃，那就把食物盛在盤里。總之不要使之成為習慣。

    3、吃飯時避免與某種聲音產生聯系。如果你每次走過自動販賣機時都想吃糖，那下次就繞著走。同樣道理，電視機也可能會引發你的食欲。不要再看電視時吃東西，或者不要在吃東西時看同一個節目。

    4、定一個15分鐘規則。一旦你想吃東西，強迫自己等上15分鐘再去吃。這樣就不會在大腦中形成條件反射。

    5、別想著一次就改掉所有壞習慣。如果你想這樣做，你的不適程度會變得很高，你的大腦會退回到那個使你更舒服的狀態。而每次只改正一兩個習慣會使大腦更容易接受。

    6、吃飯時專心致志。放下手機，離開電腦桌，掛掉電話，專心享受美食。不要把食物和其他事物聯系起來，這樣你就知道自己吃了多少而不會過度飲食。