But author Brian Wansink has a sack full of tips to keep the pounds from trickling up without destroying the holidays in his new book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think (Bantam, $25).

The Cornell University food psychologist has done countless experiments on unwitting diners at the university-run restaurant and food lab, The Spice Box. He's used everything from discretely filling soup bowls from the bottom (diners swore they ate a normal amount of soup, when in fact they ate several times more) to offering wine from a fake North Dakota label (which made people enjoy their food less than those offered the same wine from a fake California label) to understand why people eat as much as they do.

He realizes the holidays provide even more temptation than usual, as does The Salt Lake Tribune, which is launching the second annual Sugarplum Challenge, a guide each Tuesday through New Year's to help you focus on holiday weight traps and how to avoid them through diet and exercise.

This week focuses on mindless eating, and cutting back on calories that most people won't miss.

That's what makes Wansink's tips and tricks so palatable and his book No. 11 on the New York Times Best-Seller List: It doesn't feel like deprivation, just common sense.

The holidays tend to bring out the baker in all of us, which then brings out the binger. But Wansink says not to stress too much.

"People are often resigned about the holidays. They say, 'I'm going to gain weight anyway,' so they throw in the towel," he said. "But the average weight gain is only about 2 to 3 pounds."

And he has some pretty easy tips to avoid gaining any weight at all.

"You can really enjoy the holidays without really having to sacrifice," he said. "Just by slightly re-engineering your environment, you can lose a little weight instead of gain it."

His basic premise is that food is everywhere, and it's easy to grab three or four handfuls of chocolate-covered peanuts without realizing it.

His first piece of advice? Literally watch the food go from your plate into your mouth. When you're engaged in conversation, take time to break eye contact with the person to look down at your plate. Be aware of what and how much you're eating.

That's something Stacie Wing-Gaia, a nutrition instructor at the University of Utah and sports dietician at the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital, fully agrees.

"There is something called mindful eating, which is a little different and something we focus on at the hospital," she said. "The idea is to be truly present when you are eating."

It's awfully hard to pay attention to how many chocolate-dipped pretzels you have popped when you're lost in conversation at a party. You can eat at a party, just be cognizant of what you're loading up your plate with.

"In a social setting, there's a high distraction factor. We don't realize how much we eat, and we keep going on," Wansink said.

Some, such as Ann Bernstein of Cottonwood Heights, looks at holiday eating as being vegetarian or kosher: Sugars and such are simply off-limits.

"You don't sample. You don't taste. You don't yearn because it's something you don't eat," Bernstein said.

Others take a less extreme approach. Laurie Allin, a Morrison, Colo., resident and fitness enthusiast, tries to plan before parties.

"I just try to do my best to control, and plan ahead. If I know I'm going to a party, I just know I have to eat really healthy around it," she said.

Confine the food you eat to what is on your plate and pick a small plate. That should help.

Carol Conners of West Valley City also eats a salad or fruit before going to a feast, and keeps a baggie of cut-up veggies to snack on throughout the day. She also drinks plenty of water.

"A satisfied belly will not gorge," Conners said.

Here are three more tips from Wansink:

Make your great aunt Sally happy, but don't swallow: You know the great-aunt Sally type. She takes great pride in her chocolate-dipped pretzels and she wants to see you eat them, too. This is touchy, but Wansink suggests good old-fashioned deception.

Grab one nibble, and then chuck the pretzel. Go back for seconds if it makes Sally's heart soar.

"People don't remember how much you ate, just how many times you took something," he said.

It's also good to ask your relatives for support.

Allin, for example, has found understanding from her family.

"I have asked that my sister stop making me a cookie plate for the holidays. It sucks because I love them, but if I have [cookies] in my house I will eat them," she said.

Don't sit next to the buffet: Instead of grabbing another brownie, you now have to get up and walk across the room. Not only does that take effort, but it takes thought, too. Wansink also employs the rule of two, meaning you can only take two different items from the buffet at a time.

"No one is going to eat four brownies at a time," Wansink said. "Even if you go back for more of the same item on your next trip, people still end up eating about 30 percent less food. And no one is going to make eight or nine trips."

Avoid overeating "low-fat" foods: Most people end up overeating low-fat foods because they assume they are healthy and don't have to worry about the calories. But Wansink's books shows that many low-fat foods have as many or more calories than regular foods.

"We tend to put a halo around low-fat food and we generally grossly underestimate how much we've eaten," he said. "With low-fat food, we end up eating 20 percent more calories than if we eat regular food. We suggest sticking with the good stuff, and eating about 40 percent of what you'd normally eat, which is enough to satisfy a person."

It boils down to making conscious decisions about food. Enjoy the food you love, Wansink says, but do it with control and thought.

"Reducing a diet by 200 calories a day can translate into 20 pounds lost in a year," he said. "Most of us can very easily make some small changes that results in 20 or 30 pounds of loss in a year."

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* SHEENA MCFARLAND can be contacted at smcfarland @sltrib.com or 801-257-8619. Send comments to livingeditor@sltrib.com

Diet tips to save the holidays

* Shun office candy dishes. It's easy to tack on anywhere between 300 and 600 calories a day.

* Think of the buffet as that one uncle that smells, sit far away.

* Take a few of aunt Sally's chocolate-dipped pretzels, then just fake like you keep eating them.

* Break eating habits such as grabbing a nightly cookie.

* Low-fat does not mean eat the whole bag.

- Source: Brian Wansink