Take a moment and remember that first time you rode your bike without training wheels.

I see my dad, adjustable wrench in hand, bent over my bike on the sidewalk of West Douglass Street in Reading, removing the training wheels and placing the bike atop a battered blanket in the car’s trunk. I see myself scurrying past him as he opens the driver’s-side door, scrambling across the front bench seat, sitting closely beside him.

(No, my father was not negligent. As incredible as it seems to younger generations, no laws mandated special child-restraint seats — or even for cars to have seat belts! — back then.)

We drove to a dead-end road less than a mile away that led to the Schuylkill River. I pedaled tentatively at first even though my dad held the back of my seat as he ran beside me.

I gained speed, a sense of stability, and then dad wasn’t there. I was alone, wobbling occasionally, but generally in control and certainly exhilarated. When I got the nerve to turn — which did take a while — dad looked so far away.

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While it never hurts to recall a pleasant childhood memory, mine’s connected to today’s column because of what dad said on the way home: “Once you learn, you never forget how to ride a bicycle.”

Since I wholeheartedly hated forgetting stuff and disappointing my mother — like not changing into my play clothes after kindergarten or not lowering the toilet seat after doing number one — I found this idea of everlasting retention at the age of five absolutely amazing.

If only everlasting retention were true for optimal eating in adulthood.

Now this is not to say that you and I need an occasional refresher on knife and fork use or additional insight into appropriately employing the bicuspids and incisors. My belief is that we all know what we really need to do to make eating a helpful rather than a hurtful experience.

It’s just that it’s easy to get careless — or should I say mindless? — with our eating.

That’s why for the last 33 years I’ve weighed my foods. While part of the reason is purely scientific, just as big a part comes from the fact that I don’t trust myself.

I love the foods I eat, and I love eating in large amounts. The second fact is especially unfortunate if you write a health-and-fitness column. Or compete at a high level climbing hills on a bicycle.

Weighing foods for me just makes sense.

But it may not be for you even though you’d still like to keep yourself from careless eating. In that case, you need to be especially mindful of little things that ultimately affect how much you eat.

Like where you keep your treats.

Consider what researchers at the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab learned by giving office workers all the chocolate that they wanted to eat for a month. When the researchers placed the free chocolate on individual desks instead of in the communal lunch room, the office workers ate more chocolate.

How much? An average of 125 calories per day. In fact, if the study would’ve lasted 12 months, the average amount of weight gained would’ve been nearly nine pounds.

One problem with keeping food on your office desk is that doing your job — not fully experiencing the flavors of a food — is your primary task. As a result, you don’t give full attention to your snacking.

This lack of attention increases your chances of overeating for a second reason besides easy access. In an article for the November issue of Environmental Nutrition titled “Mindful Eating: Eat, Drink, and Think,” Megrette Hammond Fletcher, RD, president of The Center for Mindful Eating, explains why.

“Distracted eating does not give your brain a chance to register pleasure from what is on your plate or that you’ve had enough to eat.”

These are two of the reasons why chewing your foods slowly and thoroughly has been such a long-standing suggestion in the medical community.

Another factor that adversely affects how much you eat regardless of hunger is portion size. In fact, a comprehensive review of all pertinent research performed in 2015 at the University of Cambridge in Cambridge, England estimated that eliminating the option of larger-sized portions in the United States would reduce the calories consumed by 22 to 29 percent.

The high end of that estimate produces a reduction of 525 calories per day.

Could that actually be how many calories per day you are eating needlessly?

If so, you’re probably overweight. If you’re not, it’s only a matter of time until you join the nearly 40 percent adult Americans and 20 percent American children of now diagnosed as clinically obese.