Avoiding the pub - and other temptations

On the UKGastricBand forum the other day I responded to a lady who was struggling with chocolate. Being an expert in this area (eating it, not avoiding it!), I offered her some tips on how to avoid chocolate - ways that I have used myself to help. Mostly it's about environmental control - simply avoiding buying chocolate or avoiding vending machines and corner shops and the like. Anyway, it got me thinking about my visits to the pub on swimming night.....

Basically, I belong to an adult's swimming club and we meet for an hour's swim every Tuesday evening. We are a very sociable group and have some sort of social event every couple of months or so - usually a meal out or something. We also go straight to the pub after swimming on Tuesdays. We don't normally stay very long because swimming doesn't finish till 10pm and most of us have to get up for work in the morning. However, we stay long enough to have a drink or two. I've been swimming all my life, and one thing is certain, swimming always makes me feel very hungry - starving in fact. So, pub visits usually mean crisps or peanuts. I got to thinking that if I have a calorie-filled drink and a packet of nuts - I've probably put back most, or all, of the calories I've burned by swimming!

So, I have decided to leaf out of my own book and exert some environmental control. In future when I go swimming, I am going to be anti-social and not go to the pub afterwards. If I am hungry when I get home, I will at least have the option to have a more healthy snack such as yoghurt or something. This will also have the added benefit of me getting to bed a bit earlier - so I'll be less tired when I get up for work the next morning!