No one would suggest that losing weight is easy. The facts are in: it takes commitment, time, and change. However, we may be able to take some of the difficulty out of the task by making a few simple adjustments.
The last three decades have shown a remarkable increase in the percentage of people who are overweight or obese. Eating has become the national pastime. We eat when we socialize, watch TV or movies, work (isn't someone just always bringing donuts?). We eat to reward ourselves, to relieve frustration, to calm our nerves, to busy our hands, and, we drink "pop" with abandon, and so on.
The problem with this constant eating is that we have lost touch with the natural, inborn triggers that tell us when we are hungry and when we are full. Eating, for most of us, has no relationship with hunger. We eat because the food is there...we keep eating because there's food left.
The nutrition laboratory at Cornell University tested the theory that we will naturally stop eating when we are "not" hungry. They created a "bottomless soup bowl" which was constantly refilled by means of a hidden tube at the bottom of the bowl. They served soup from a regular bowl to half of a group and soup from the constantly refilled bowl to the other. What happened? The diners eating from the automatically-filled bowl ate 73% more soup than the normal bowl group. Clearly, we eat because the food is there.
Further, we don't concentrate on the food during the process of consuming it. Our minds are fully engaged with something else...TV, chatting, reading...we can call this "mindless eating" (unfortunately it is anything but "fat-less" eating).
Yet another problem is that we eat too fast...a sign of the times in which we live perhaps. Still, the negative effect of that habit, weight-wise, is that even if we are aware of our brain-activated "full signal", we will have eaten more than necessary by the time the neurons have gotten the message...all because we are eating too fast.
Another theory that has been shown by numerous studies is that we eat up to 45% more from large plates than we do when the same amount of food is served in smaller plates. We seem to feel that the plate should be filled...if it is not, we are left feeling unsatisfied or even deprived. Also, the larger the plate or bowl, the larger the portions we will automatically dish up.
So, what's the bottom line? There are several simple steps we can take in order to help with our quest toward weight loss.
1. Develop a habit of "mindful" eating. When we eat, let's eat...nothing else. If we're going to consume calories we might just as well fully enjoy each bite. (If we don't fully enjoy each bite, perhaps it's time to put the fork down?)
2. Have scheduled eating times...three small meals and healthful,satisfying snacks in between (vegetables, fruits, reduced-fat cheese, whole grain breads and crackers, a handful of nuts).
3. Eat when you are aware that you are hungry. Don't munch just because the food is there.
4. Eat slowly and focus on the signal you will receive from the brain that you are full. Then, stop eating.
5. Use smaller plates and bowls for serving food.
While losing weight may not be easy, perhaps we are making it a lot more difficult than it need be?
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