Behavioral Eating Tips

“All Things Fitness” Column

Behavioral Eating Tips
By: Patty Peoples

It’s countdown time to one of the biggest family gathering and eating days of the year, Thanksgiving. So before you pack up the car and head over to the relatives, or perhaps a friends’ house, I’m going to give you a few behavioral eating tips to help keep you from adding unwanted pounds. Don’t wait until the New Year to make changes, start now and you will have almost a two month jump on everyone else. Also, by choosing the holidays to enact behavioral changes, you will be that much stronger during any other time of the year.

We humans are creatures of habit and if some of those habits are contributing to over consumption of excess calories, then you must make a conscious effort to change those particular habits. One of the easiest methods for doing that is making some minor adjustments to your eating behavior.

1) Smaller bowls or plates – By choosing a smaller bowl or plate for your food, you will eat closer to one true serving size. For example, most cereals’ serving sizes are roughly ¾ to 1 cup. However, most people probably eat between two to four serving sizes because of the size bowl they choose to use. People generally don’t measure out their cereal; but rather, fill their bowl to just below the rim. Test this theory for yourself. The next time you eat cereal, before you pour in the milk, measure your amount of cereal and compare it with the serving size on the cereal package. In the future, use a bowl that is closer to a true serving size. You will barely notice the difference, because you will still fill the bowl to just below the rim, except this time, you won’t be consuming too many calories. The same holds true for lunch and dinner meals. Keep the plates proportionate to true serving sizes. Otherwise, you will fill the plate with food for the sake of filling up the plate without considering serving sizes.

2) Smaller utensils – This is especially true for spoons. Use the smallest spoon possible for all your needs. Forget the large soup spoon. If you use a smaller spoon for eating hot soup, not only will you take smaller bites, but you will take longer to eat the soup. The longer you take eating, the sooner your brain will register full and you won’t overeat as much.

In 2003, an analysis was done at a Cornell University ice cream social about the effect of portion sizes when using different sized bowls and utensils. The study involved a group of 85 nutrition experts, gathering to honor a colleague. Randomly, they were given either a smaller (17 oz) or a larger (34 oz) bowl and either a smaller (2 oz) or larger (3 oz) ice cream scoop. After serving themselves, their ice cream was weighed as they completed a brief survey.
It was found that those given larger bowls served themselves 31.0% more ice cream without being aware of it. Their servings even increased by 14.5% when they used a larger serving spoon.

3) Take your time – Savor each bite! By taking your time to enjoy your meal, you will give your body time to realize it is full. It takes roughly 20 minutes for your gastric hormones to reach your brain and turn off your appetite. If you eat too fast, you are more likely to overeat.

4) Out of sight – Keep any of your “junk snacks” out of direct line of your vision in your pantry, refrigerator or freezer. I’m talking about cookies, candy, ice cream, chips, ding-dongs, cup cakes or anything similar. Put them out of sight so you don’t see them every time you open the door. What you don’t see on a regular basis, you won’t be tempted to eat

Also, when attending a party or family function with a buffet of food, don’t seat close to any food areas, but rather in an area of the room out of sight of any tempting food. By not making it easy to just reach over and grab a plate of food, you will be less likely to overeat. That also means don’t stand next to a buffet of food while visiting with friends or relatives. Otherwise, you may end up snacking the entire time you are chatting, which could spell excess for your calorie intake.

By incorporating some of these behavioral tips during your meals and at social gatherings, you should be able to keep unwanted pounds at bay. Good luck!

Patty Peoples is an accomplished fitness professional with 30 years of experience, including 20 years as a Fitness Educator at Chaffey College and was recently crowned World Duathlon Champion in her division. Patty can be reached at p2peakperformance@hotmail.com