Mindless Eating

I just finished reading the book, Mindless Eating, by Brian Wansink. My friend, Jeanette, read it awhile back and recommended it. She has lost a ton of weight and a lot of that is due to ideas from this book. I absolutely loved the book. It is written by a food researcher who has done a myriad number of studies on people and their food habits. The studies are so interesting but as he writes he has a very conversational style that mixes humor with the data. The geek in me was overjoyed.

However, the biggest thing for me was that he reveals a lot of truths about how we relate to food and overeating. By the end, he asks you to consider making 3 changes that will hopefully eliminate 100 calories from each day. Losing 100 calories from each day should, in theory, result in eliminating 30 pounds from your life over the course of a year. Now for the cool part. He doesn't tell you what changes to make. He asks you to examine your eating habits, especially in terms of the ideas he has researched. He then asks you to use those habits and select 3 things to change. Next step? Make a chart for each day of the week and those 3 things so that you can check off each day if you have done those 3 things. The 3 things can be worded positively or negatively and could be things like only eat dessert if I've excerised today, drink 1 full calorie soda each day instead of my usual 3, don't eat in the living room while watching tv, or use a dessert plate to put my meals on instead of a dinner plate.

My list is eat only 2 pre-portioned snacks a day, eat only 1/2 portions of dessert, and eat 20% more fruits and vegetables and 20% less starches and proteins. I picked the first one because I am a horrible snacker. I am especially tempted to snack when I am home all day. I could snack all day long. Seriously. I also know that if I pre portion a snack out I am more likely to feel full and not want more. I also have a major sweet tooth. Telling me not to eat dessert is not going to happen. I generally don't buy dessert or have them in my cupboard. But, since I like to cook, if I don't have dessert and am craving something, I'll just make cookies. The thought of cooking sweets but never tasting them, going to a pot luck and not sampling all the sweets or nixing ice cream forever makes me feel faint. But 1/2 portions I can do. The 20% more/less idea is straight from the book. My mom was a big stickler for 2 servings of fruits/vegetables when we were growing up and I usually follow that rule in our house. I always try not to serve two starches in one meal. (If we're having potatoes, no corn or bread as a side, etc..) I also try hard to cook in healthy ways. We use lean meats, cook in canola oil, use skim milk, etc.. So I really do think that most of our meals are fairly heathful. The author recommends dishing yourself out your normal portions of everything but then going back and taking off 20% of the proteins/starches and add on 20% more fruits or vegetables. I've been trying that for a few days but am really going to work on doing it at every meal.

Anyway, that's my plan. I have known for a while that I was just eating whatever I wanted but was too lazy to really do anything about it. I'm hoping that getting my mind headed in that direction will help me get my mind back in the "I need to exercise" mode too. (I always think that; it's the actual exercise that gets me.)