How to Outsmart Your Eating Instincts

Even if you’re committed to eating heathily, our minds are tricky little buggers that often derail our plans, without us even realize it. The result is that people, in general, eat way more food than they think they do.

Here’s a rundown of tricks to take control of your mind-of-its-own appetite:

Eat dinner on dessert plates.
Large plates create an optical illusion to make us think we have less food than we really do. A recent study found that people eat a full 25 percent more when they eat off a larger plate. For a trimmer dinner, swap out your large plates for smaller ones (max 10 inch) or serve dinner on dessert plates.

Drink from thin glasses.
If a short, wide glass looks smaller than a tall, thin glass, don’t be fooled. A study published in the British Medical Journal found that people pour 30 percent more liquid into a short glass versus a tall one. Even after the phenomenon is explained to them and they’re allowed to practice pouring less, they still pour 26 percent more in a short glass. The takeaway? Drink water from any old glass but pour caloric drinks like juice or soda into skinny glasses.

Eat at the dining room table.
If you tend to eat traight out of the container while standing at the kitchen counter, eating at the dining room table is actually a better idea. A study about which small changes work best for weight loss found that sitting down to eat is among the most effective tricks. So pull up a chair and make mealtime a sit-down affair.

Drink a glass of water before eating.
Think you’re hungry? You might just be thirsty. Our minds tend to confuse thirst with hunger, so drinking a glass of water before eating can help you eat less, or even make you realize you don’t need a snack at all.

Nix “family style” serving platters.
Dinner spreads with bowls of mashed potatoes and heaping plates of chicken wings might look amazing but they’re a sure way to pack on the pounds. Serving food “family style”—with the serving platters on the table—makes you more likely to opt for a second or third round. Instead, serve your portion before you sit down and leave the rest of the food on the counter.

Snack on pistachios.
Eating in-shell pistachios (a low-calorie nut) may help you curb your vacuum-like instincts in two ways. First, digging those nuts out of their shells slows consumption and can decrease your calorie consumption (from the nuts) by 41 percent.

Grocery shop with cash.
It sounds odd but bring some cash with you on your next shopping trip, and mentally commit to only spending that amount on food. It helps you with food savings plus paying with cash might keep junk food out of your cart. Junk food is often an impulse buy and paying with credit or debit cards lowers your impulse control. Paying with cash forces you to think about what you’re buying, so if you’ve been known to toss a bag of Doritos into your basket seemingly against your own will, leave the plastic at home.

Be the first to order.
Unless your friends are healthy buff at restaurants, order your meal first. This is because if the people in your group order burgers and fries with bottomless sodas before you, how easy it going to be for you to order the vegetable stir fry and a glass of wine? Precisely.

Dish your takeout food onto your own plate.
Restaurant portions are huge, but when they’re packed into takeout containers it’s hard to gauge that for yourself. Next thing you know, you’ve devoured an entire carton of pork fried rice in the blink of an eye. Dish your food out onto your own plate at home and you’ll likely eat less when you can visually measure your portions against a familiar dish.

If you want to outsmart your eating instincts, pick a tip and commit to doing it until it becomes a habit. So, which tip will you pick to try?

Source: youbeauty.com