Oops, I Ate That

Outsmart sneaky habits that make you overeat.

I once tracked my food for a week—just to see.

I thought I was dialed in.

I was off by nearly 125 calories a day.

Doesn’t sound like much. But over time, it adds up.

A week? Roughly a quarter pound.
A year? Seven pounds.

Why?

Simple. I wasn’t paying attention.

Eating while multitasking.
Forgetting to count the cooking oil.
Grabbing “just one bite” here and there.
It wasn’t a discipline problem. It was a focus problem.

I’m hardly alone.

In a classic study, people with obesity misjudged their habits—badly.

They underestimated how much they ate by 47%.
And overestimated their activity by 51%.

Not a typo.

Another study: Adults underestimated fast food meals by 175 calories.
Teens? Over 250.

Add distraction—TV, phone, laptop—and it gets worse.

One study showed that distraction doesn’t just make you eat more—it also makes it harder to remember what you ate later.

Tracking only works if you’re actually paying attention.

Awareness beats willpower.

Today’s food is engineered to hijack your brain—hyper-palatable, everywhere, designed to make you overeat.

Want to eat better?

Here are simple, science-backed ways to stay aware.

No tracking required.