A lot of people do not realize why they continue to gain weight. Weight often creeps up slowly over a period of years. This phenomenon is called weight creep. Here is a list of habits that could be stealthily causing you to pile on the pounds.

1.  Not Exercising – Exercising is essential to avoid weight creep. The National Weight Control Registry (NWCR) has data from thousands of people who have successfully lost and managed to keep the weight off. 90% of them exercised up to 1 hour a day.

2. Missing Breakfast - Breakfast consumption is another habit that was evident in the people tracked by the NWCR. 78% of the people who lost weight and kept it off ate breakfast everyday. In an earlier article  on the effects of skipping breakfast on weight loss, we published the findings of a recent study showed that people who skipped breakfast had a tendency to store abdominal fat.

3. Missing Meals and Not Having Snacks – People lead a hectic lifestyle. People are willing to sacrifice their meals in order to keep up with their workloads. Missing meals sends signals to your body to activate the starvation response. Missing meals is a cardinal sin. One should try to have meals at regular timings.

4. Having a Heavy Dinner – Dinner is the one meal that most people over do. Most people with hectic lifestyles eat heavy dinners. The overload of calories so late in the day results in a lot of these calories being stored as fat.

5. Alcohol consumption – Alcohol halts fat metabolism. Anyone who is serious about keeping their weight in check should observe their drinking habits.

6. Sleeping Immediately After Dinner – Most people are so tired by the time they get back from work that they just barely make it through to dinner. They go to bed soon after. This is a sure-fire recipe for weight gain. One should allow at least 2 hours after dinner before going to bed.

7.  Having Desserts after Dinner - Having a dessert after dinner is a well accepted practise but this again is a potent recipe for fat storage. Desserts are usually full of fat and sugar. All these calories consumed so close to bed time will be stored as fat.

8. Dieting - Diets of any sort without exercise will damage your metabolism. Every diet bout will gradually slow down your metabolism. You will soon reach a point where you don’t need to eat much but you continue to put on weight.

9. Going for Second Helpings - This is a habit that no one really pays attention to. Take one serving and limit it to that. When you take second and third helpings, you start losing track of how much you have eaten.

10. Consuming Sweetened Drinks and Colas – Sweetened drinks such as lattes and colas are very calorie dense. These are also liquid calories. Liquid calories are the fastest means to pile on fat. These drinks don’t need digesting. Since the calories are absorbed into the blood stream fast, the body stores the unwanted calories as fat.

So share your thoughts below on how these habits may be affecting your weight. Do mention other habits that may be causing weight gain, which are not mentioned above.