eating ideas from a diet infomercial

[Murphysraven]

So I was on a trip and the hotel television had absolutly nothing on but infomercials (and qvc type programs).

One of the infomercials caught my attention for a weight loss product. The idea behind the product was a powder you sprinkled on all your food that activated the brain's smell sensorys (and probably other things) to make you feel fuller faster. Now I know there are no miricle products out there and this was just another gimmic. But I have decided to try my own version of their "miracle technology".

If the brain feels full faster from smelling food I decided I would just take time to really smell every bite I take. I also am slowing down my eating and really savoring each bite and chewing more then i normally would. I added to that a large glass of water during my meal that is helping with my fullness factor.

So far it's really working for me. But i think the trick is really slowing down. I used to be a person who would just shovel down food as fast as it would go. It was especially hard to slow down when I was hungry and thats when my tendancy to overeat and not recognise that i was full half a plate ago.

I don't have a very keen sense of smell but I am trying this method anyways. Who needs questionable chemicals in my food when just slowing down and listening to your body works better?

One of the tricks I learned from my stint at weight watchers really stuck with me. They taught about this point in eating your meal where your body does a little sigh when it is satisfied. Most of the time it's hard to spot but once I started watching for it I could tell I did a little sigh often times before my plate was finished. Having grown up in a clean your plate household there are starving children in X country this has been one of the hardest things for me to change. And once I am done I usually need to either push my plate away or have it removed so I don't continue to pick at my food.

[Nicest of the Damned]

So far it's really working for me. But i think the trick is really slowing down. I used to be a person who would just shovel down food as fast as it would go. It was especially hard to slow down when I was hungry and thats when my tendancy to overeat and not recognise that i was full half a plate ago.

It takes around 15 to 20 minutes for your brain to register that you're full. That means everybody who eats until they are full is going to eat a little more than they need to. If you eat slowly, you'll eat less food in that 20 minute window than someone who eats fast would.

If you sit at the table for a fixed amount of time (say, one or two TV shows), you'll tend to eat the whole time you are there, if you have food in front of you. Obviously, someone who eats slowly is going to eat less than someone who eats fast.

Numerous studies have found correlations between eating fast and being overweight. I used to scoff at food etiquette that I thought was designed to slow people down when eating. I thought it was better to eat fast and get on with doing stuff other than eating as soon as possible. Not any more. Now I'm trying to make myself eat slower.

This also suggests to me that the idea of "food as fuel, not pleasure" that some people advocate for weight loss may not be the way to go. If food is just fuel, there's no reason not to get the necessary chore of fueling over as quickly as possible. You want the most fuel for the least money. Those are not behaviors or outlooks that seem to be correlated with being at a healthy weight. If eating for pleasure were correlated with being overweight, you'd expect to see a much higher obesity rate in France than in the US. That's not what we see.

That powder probably seems to work, too, even if it's totally chemically inert. In Mindless Eating, Brian Wansink talks about an experiment where they put people in a dark room and gave them what they said was strawberry yogurt, and asked questions about it afterward. Only it wasn't strawberry yogurt, it was chocolate yogurt. The participants all thought it was strawberry yogurt and commented on its strawberry flavor. If you think that sprinkling a powder over your food will make it taste better, it probably will.

[wosnes]

But i think the trick is really slowing down.

I think you're right. Slowing down accomplishes several things, one of which is allowing you to experience eating the meal -- not just a time to shove food in your mouth.