3 Easy Ways To Eat Less

What we do and what we don’t do often depends on the situation we’re in. On a funeral you’ll talk about different subjects and in a different mood as, let’s say on a wedding reception, or when you meet with friends over coffee. If you want to lose weight permanently with healthy weight loss one of the key elements is creating situations and environments where you’ll automatically eat less.

Psychological research has shown some easy ways to reduce food consumption helping you with permanent weight loss. In fact, these ways are often common sense- you might realize how easy the following three suggestions will help you to lose weight permanently.

The first way is to eat seated in company- not standing alone. Patricia Pliner (University of Toronto) found a whopping 30% increase of food intake between lone, standing eaters compared to seated eaters talking in pairs. So: Don’t eat alone; get somebody to eat with you. And sit down.

The second way has to do with smell- as you know the smell of food awakens the appetite. Smell activates different brain regions than taste- a result found by Dana Small (associate professor of psychiatry at Yale). This leads to searching for the food causing the smell. It has probably served our ancestors very well- when they smelled food they were automatically drawn to it. Nowadays, with our abundance of food, this mechanism is an obstacle to lose weight permanently. So: watch out for a “food smell free” environment.

The third one has to do with distractions from your eating environment. When you are eating in front of the TV, you will eat more- because your attention is on the TV and not on your food. This can boost your calorie intake to 70% and more. There are many more distractions- for example driving. The drive through might be convenient, but it does not help you to lose weight permanently.

Related article:
Will Oprah’s Weight Loss Work?