We can all find a little space for something particularly delicious and tempting. Our stomachs (normally the size of our fist) are very stretchy.
But what is making us eat when we are not hungry? Well, there are a number of reasons. If any seem to apply to you, think about how you can avoid them.

For many of us, it is boredom. We are wanting something to do with our hands. This is often the case when watching telly. Snacking in front of the telly is a risk factor for obesity. But what was that? Bored while watching telly? Maybe it is time to do something more rewarding like martial arts, or yoga, or going to the cinema, or phoning someone. Or taking up knitting or pottery. Many of us have got out of the way of hobbies. Our lives are complicated and it seems just too much extra hassle to get involved. But it is one of the best ways of controlling our weight.

For others of us, it is habit. If we regularly eat a little snack at 3.00pm, then our bodies get used to it. Even if we have had plenty to eat, our bodies cry out for the 3.00pm intake. After a couple of days without the 3pm snack, these cravings go. Refined carbohydrates make your blood sugar peak and trough dramatically so you feel hungry soon after. This includes sugary foods, white flour, sweets, cakes and biscuits. If you don't buy them, you won't eat them. Remember, in the hand is in the mouth.

Of course, if something looks and smells delicious, our body responds positively, with lots of encouraging saliva flow, which itself makes you hungry. Alcohol lowers your general ability to resist. If you eat before you go out drinking, you will be less likely to succumb to a takeaway on the way home.

Think of fizzy pop as liquid sweeties. Irn-Bru contain over 140 calories in an 330ml can. That is more than 9 teaspoons of sugar. You wouldn't put that much sugar in your tea.

But on top of that, chewing our calories helps us to know when we have eaten enough and so helps us to avoid overeating.

Nowadays most of us never really feel hungry, so we no longer recognise the bodily sensations which tell us when we are hungry or when we are full. Scientists have found out that the complex aromas in food help us to feel satisfied and so stop us from overeating.

How can this help us? Well, to get the benefit from these responses, we need to give our bodies time. So eating small bites slowly lets these aromas do their work and help us to feel full.

Drinking our calories doesn't trigger these responses.

But you might say, I drink no-cal drinks. Well, research has shown that this is no strategy for weight loss. Why is that? Well, it could be that your body is expecting calories from that drink, and so triggers hunger pangs so we eat (probably high-cal snacks) or it could be that somehow we believe that the no-cal drink is all we need to do for weight control. Either way, research shows that it does not work. See my blog of 6 June 2010.

So what is the answer? We don't need fizzy pop. We might like it, but we don't need it. It makes us fat without us even noticing. You can live without fizzy pop. Give it up!