Here are seven tips that can help you reduce the amount of unnecessary food you eat during the day.

1. Make sure you are eating enough during your meals. This is not a license to gorge, however if you are cutting your food portions in half to lose weight this will leave your body under-fueled and hungry.
   
   Make sure you are eating lots of fruits, veggies, nuts and seeds; these foods are healthy and provide your body with a large source of slowly released energy, nutrients and minerals.
   
   
2. Make sure your meals are at similar times each day. What I mean here is that if you have breakfast everyday at 8am except Thursday when you have it at 6:30am (morning meetings, exercising etc) then chances are on Thursday you will be pretty hungry around mid morning as your body is ready to receive more nutrients and energy. Likewise with lunch and dinner. Perhaps on that day you should take a small container of dried nuts and fruit to eat around mid morning to keep you going until lunch.
   
   
3. If you work in an office or on the road make sure you have a number of healthy snack options if you need one. Understand the different foods available to you in your working area and identify which ones you can eat if you are hungry.
   
   
4. Keep a small snack box at home that you are allowed to visit once or twice a day (depending on how much calories/fat you have allowed yourself for the day). Fill the box (container) with nuts, seeds, fresh fruit, dried fruit, vegetable pieces, and low fat/calorie crackers.
   
   If you want you can also have snacks in the fridge such as low fat yoghurt's, cold meat and cheese portions (as long as it is controlled – always a great idea to buy the little cheese pieces in the deli section of the super market as then you aren’t responsible for cutting off a small amount of a large and very temping block of cheese!).
   
   
5. When you are at a friends, neighbors or family member's house you can still have a cream biscuit or a small piece of cake, however just have ONE biscuit and only eat HALF of a normal sized piece of cake. You don’t have to be a saint when it comes to dieting, just be controlled and understand the effects of eating the second half of the cake!
   
   
6. If you are hungry in the afternoon try drinking water. If you are still hungry after 10 minutes then have something to eat. Try other tips to get your mind of snacking like: phoning someone, doing a chore, writing an email, cleaning up some mess, going for a walk etc.
   
   
7. Ask yourself if you are actually hungry? Is this a pattern that I have created? E.g. every day at 10am you get a packet of chips from the vending machine down stairs from your office. Is this because you are hungry or because you are bored? Try to remove these little habits as they can often be what tips you over each week when trying to lose weight, preventing you from reaching your goal.

Remember it is OK to snack if you have put it in your diet plan. Don’t deprive yourself of food - this is the worst thing you can do, all you will end up thinking about is your favorite chocolate bar or macaroni cheese!

Plan your daily food around incorporating one or two snacks. This way you get to control what you eat whilst still getting a little treat now and then.