Fit Fare

I recently read Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think by Bruce Wansink, Ph.d., after a friend recommended Wansink’s website, the Cornell University Food and Brand Lab. I was curious, because while I consider myself fairly in control of my eating habits and eat what most people would consider healthy on a regular basis, I have my slip-ups. I might not down a box of Oreo cookies in a sitting, but that’s because I don’t keep Oreo cookies in the house. That type of prepackaged, partially-hydrogenated snack food doesn’t appeal to me. I have, however, eaten half a box of Kashi-GoLean in 10 minutes, a quarter jar of peanut butter, and countless bags of Craisins, meringues, trail mixes, and other “good-for-you” foods in one sitting.

In short, I’m a health food junkie. I’d say this type of health food binge eating might happen about once a week, and almost always when I am by myself. Since it doesn’t happen very often, it allows me to get back on track the following day, usually motivated by guilt. Still I realize that overeating even reasonably healthy food, is a very unhealthy habit to have. I equate food with conflicting emotions of anxiety, guilt, sadness, and pleasure, and I’m not really paying attention to what I’m eating or how it makes my body feel until it’s about 30 minutes too late. Not to mention that the increase of such unhealthy eating habits can have disastrous effects if they continue unabated, or if I suddenly develop cravings for midnight Mallowmars.

My challenge is to curb those unhealthy eating habits when it comes to portion control, and the Mindless Eating Challenge presented in the last chapter of Wansink’s book “Mindlessly Eating Better” seems like a reasonable solution to try.

I grew up in a house where you were expected to clear your plate of heaping spoonfuls of food, or else you couldn’t have dessert, so portion control has always been something I have approached scientifically rather than from a instinctual or socially formed perspective. Sometimes, I’m very motivated. I‘ll take out a measuring cup and ration an exact serving. Other times, whether out of sheer laziness or because I don’t have enough time, I have to eyeball it, like a portion of almonds is a small handful. If this book has proven anything to me, however, it’s that my eyes can’t be trusted.

What Mindless Eating emphasizes, like many other books that seek to inspire a healthy eating lifestyle rather than quick crash diets, is the instinctual and social approach to food and portion control, which many of us have to relearn. We have to force ourselves to remember that food is for enjoyment, pleasure, taste, nourishment, and above all to improve our general physical and mental wellbeing. What I have found most valuable from Mindless Eating are easier ways to learn portion control that will hopefully curtail those once-a-week, albeit health food, binges. I’ve written the top ten tips here that I found to be the most useful. Because whether or not you are a health food junkie or a junk food lover, overeating deprives you of enjoying the fulfillment of a satisfying and nourishing meal and leaves a bad aftertaste.

10 Ways To Learn Portion Control adapted from Mindless Eating

1) Create Stop Signs. Pour out portions from the larger box or container. Obviously, the abundance of new 100 calorie packs makes this easier, but that option isn’t always economical, possible, or the most healthy. Another way to create stop signs are to keep sayings that will make you think before you eat. A familiar saying that often comes to my mind is “Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels.” A slight overstatement, but sometimes when I’m reaching for an additional helping, it makes me pause.
2) Ignore the “Health Halo.” Just because it’s low in calories, fat, or carbohydrates, etc. doesn’t necessarily mean eat more. For someone, like myself, who stocks her kitchen with healthy food, this is my most noticeable pitfall.
3) Fixate on fullness. You don’t need to clean plate. In fact, try to leave a little bit on your plate after each meal especially when dining out, and you’ll end up saving lots of unnecessary calories.
4) Leave the mess. A cluttered table, a sticky plate shows that you’ve eaten and how much.
5) Hide your treats. Keep your goodies, or “trigger foods” (and everyone has them, whether it’s chocolate or granola) in hard to reach places. Wansink also showed that keeping food in opaque containers also helps prevent you from overindulging. By the same token, store healthy foods, like fruits and vegetables in the open.
6) Pour smarter. Tall and thin glasses look like they contain liquid than short and fat glasses, so try to pour calorie-laden drinks into skinny glasses.
7) Know where you overeat. Do you tend to overeat by yourself or with others? In the dark or while doing fixating on some other task like checking email or watching the television? Be mindful of your meal. If you’re not really hungry, but are just used to mindlessly eating, like at a movie theater, than try to use water or gum as substitute.
8) Serve small. We use background objects to determine size. If you serve yourself from a large serving bowl, you tend to get a large serving size. You’ve probably heard this before, but swap your big dishes and bowls for smaller containers.
9) Rate the taste. Only eat that which tastes good for you. If you don’t truly enjoy it, i.e. savor it, it’s not worth it.
10) Keep snacks and meals simple. More variety means you’re likely to eat more. This is particularly true if you’re at a buffet or someone’s house. Take a small helping of 2 or 3 selections on a small plate and see if you are satiated.

At the end of the book, Wansink challenges the reader to come up with three habits that he or she can work to change after reflecting on his/her personal eating habits. Wansink selects 3 objectives because he finds that more people will stick to just this number than a higher amount. Here are the challenges that I have laid out for myself after reading this book, given my personal eating habits and where I can see room for improvement. If you choose to take the challenge, you can also register online on the National Mindless Eating Challenge, and receive motivation, feedback, and tips on how to work towards your goals and make them habit-forming.

1) Try not to eat directly from the box, bag, or ice cream carton. Take time to measure out the portion.

2) Try to eat only sitting down. I’m not as mindful of how much I eat when I’m standing up. Usually if I’m standing, I’m multitasking and not paying attention to how much I’m eating.

3) Limit myself to one carbohydrate per meal. Try not to take second helpings of starch. If I’m still hungry, I can eat more fruit and vegetables.