It’s National BLT Month! While most people think of bacon, lettuce, and tomato, we are talking about bites, licks, and tastes! Many times, we find ourselves in situations where we think, “I’m just going to have a little bite!” While that may seem harmless enough, the reality is these little mindless indulgences can add up quickly.

Whether that’s a bite of the cookies your coworker brought to the office, a lick of your kids’ ice cream, or a taste (or two) while cooking – you could be adding hundreds of extra calories over the course of the day and not even know it! Let’s look at an example:

You start your day by making your kids lunch, and you lick the extra peanut butter off the knife while making a PB&J sandwich = +30 calories

When you arrive at work, you see that one of your coworkers brought donuts in. Rather than indulge in a whole donut, you decide to just grab a couple of donut holes = +90 calories

After lunch, you see that there are still donuts left in the breakroom. “One more won’t hurt,” you think to yourself as you grab one more donut hole before walking back to your desk = +45 calories

You pick up your kids from school and decide to make them an afternoon snack. You pour them a small bowl of popcorn, but set aside one cup for yourself = +30 calories

While making dinner for your family, you taste your recipe along the way to make sure that the flavor is right. After tasting your sauce 3 times, you decide that it tastes perfect = +30 calories

Cleaning the dishes, you finish off the two and a half chicken nuggets your kids did not eat = +100 calories

You are finally relaxing for the night after another long day. You decide you need a little sweet treat before bed and grab two pieces of chocolate = +75 calories

While it may have seemed harmless enough in the moment, these additional bites and tastes packed on an extra 400 calories! So, what can you do?

Try incorporating more mindfulness around eating during the day. Before you indulge, check in with yourself. Are you eating this food because you are truly hungry, or are you giving into eating “just because”? Taking a few extra seconds to evaluate before grabbing that extra donut hole or licking the peanut butter off the spoon can help save you from calories that you may not have ever known you were consuming. Don’t let the small bites, licks, and tastes derail you from your goal! A little self-awareness is key to conquering the BLTs!