Without needing any will power, or special diet, there are some simple things you can do to mindlessly eat less, all backed by scientific research. I’m all about easy ways lose weight. After changing your environment, and learning what the skinny people do, you will be on your way to a healthier you.
People often think they can’t lose weight and keep it off because they don’t have enough willpower. Brian Wansink, PhD, the director of Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab, where they study people’s eating behaviors, says:
“It’s easier to change your environment than to change your mind.”
We make over 200 choices about food everyday. We’re busy and don’t even notice most of these. Willpower is too hard. In his book, Slim By Design, he shares his 25 years of research on how to change your environment so that you eat less, and better. Without even thinking about it!
You’ve probably heard you will eat less food if you use smaller plates. That tip is from his research. It’s much easier to use a smaller plate (9-10″) than using large plates(12″) and having to remember every time not to eat too much. Here are more ways to set up your environment based on his extensive research.
Changes you can make in your home to be slimmer:
- Make your kitchen less “loungeable”. The more you hang out in there the more you’ll eat. Get rid of the TV and comfortable chairs.
- Make tempting foods invisible and inconvenient. The foods we see first are the foods we eat the most. Rearrange your pantry and refrigerator so that the healthy option is up front. You’re three times more likely to pick the first food you see than the fifth one. Don’t keep your fruits and vegetables in the crisper bin but instead on the top shelf of the fridge.
- Store healthy leftovers, and foods you want to eat more often, in clear plastic wrap and clear plastic containers. Use aluminum foil and opaque containers for foods you should eat less often.
- Make it easier to cook. Have a dedicated place to prep food. Have good lighting.
- Use smaller plates, as well as smaller cups and bowls, serving bowls and serving spoons. We dish out an extra 14-17% more food from larger bowls and spoons which quickly adds up to extra pounds. We pour less in tall glasses than we do in glasses that are short and wide.
- If you buy large size packages of food to save time or money, break them down into smaller portions to store. If you’ve already cooked it, split it in half before serving and put half in the freezer. Otherwise you’ll eat 22% more food.
- Serve your plates from the stove or counter to eat 19% less than having the bowls on the table.
- “Snack-proofing” means to make foods less convenient and enjoyable. Keep track of everything you eat for 2-3 days and look for patterns. Then find a way to tweak the pattern to make it more inconvenient. If you snack only at the kitchen table with no media on you’ll likely snack much less.
- 2 or 3 bites of chips, chocolate or apple pie are just as satisfying as a full size portion. Have a couple bites and then distract yourself with something else to do.
- TV, and other distractions, make us overeat because we are eating out of habit and not hunger, and because we are aren’t paying attention to how much we eat. If we are going to eat while being distracted, make it a point to only take a small portion from the kitchen to the other room.
Warning: It doesn’t work to think, “Oh now that I know this it won’t happen to me.” Research shows that it does happen, even to experts in the field, because we can’t be paying attention all the time.
Make these small easy changes that you won’t even notice after you get them set up. If you want more information, his book has a 100 point checklist for changes to make to set yourself up for success. If you are serious about making changes, start here. Because it is easy, it will work!
“If you want to be skinny, do what skinny people do.”-Brian Wansink
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