Too Much on Her Plate

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Size Matters

August 26th, 2009, No Comments »

When it comes to weight loss and overeating, it’s not only important to pay attention to what you put on your plate, it turns out that it’s also worth being careful about the plate you choose to use.

Want a fairly painless weight loss tip? This one comes from Brian Wansink and the researchers at the Food and Brand Lab at Cornell University.  They’ve found that we tend to fill the real estate on our plates rather than actually making a conscious decision about how much food we need to fuel ourselves. And once the food is on the plate, we’re more likely to eat it.  According to Wansink, we tend to eat 92% of any food we serve ourselves.

Here’s the good news: Size matters—and it can matter significantly. On average, downsizing from a 12-inch to a 10-inch dinner plate would result in an average of 22% fewer calories being served. Even better, researchers find that this difference is not drastic enough to trigger a counteracting response (sometimes when we cut back we tend to compensate by eating more of something else—this is not the case here). If a typical dinner has 800 calories, a smaller plate would lead to a weight loss of around 18 lbs. per year for an average size adult.  Interested?

Wansink is the expert on Mindless Eating (and his book by the same name is one I’ve recommended before).

Here’s one more quick tip for you, courtesy of Wansink: fifty percent of the snack food bought in bulk (such as from your local warehouse club) is eaten within six days of purchase. Are those huge bags of chips still looking like such a good deal?

Take good care,

Melissa

The End of Overeating–I Give Up!

August 10th, 2009, No Comments »

I give up.  For a month now I have been intending to write a post about the information-packed book The End of Overeating: Taking Control of the Insatiable American Appetite by Dr. David Kessler, a former FDA commissioner. This book is a brilliantly written explanation of how overeating is biologically and culturally driven—not a character flaw.  Kessler reviews an incredible range of research detailing how the food industry, our evolving lifestyle, and marketing influences have, in combination, altered our biological self-regulatory mechanisms and how increasing numbers of people of all ages are being “set up” for a lifetime of overeating and an obsessive relationship with food.

It’s great stuff.  And each time I sit down to write about one portion of it, I feel like I’m leaving something out.  You deserve the full meal deal.

Knowledge is power and there is a lot of knowledge in this book.  The more we know about how food influences us, the more we are able to make conscious choices about how and what we eat. As Kessler points out, awareness of the factors that drive us to overeat and to crave foods that are high in sugar, fat, and salt is the first essential step in breaking the cycle and creating a new relationship with food.

Knowledge also helps us let go of inaccurate and unhelpful guilt and self blame.  The truth is, there are important reasons that Americans weigh more and eat more than ever.

How to make time to digest all this helpful information when you’re already very busy?  Here’s what I did.  I listened to the unabridged version on CD while I was driving. This is a listen (and a read) that I highly recommend.

Take good care,

Melissa

Positivity: A Key Ingredient to Your Best Life

July 28th, 2009, No Comments »

Negativity can sabotage weight loss and healthy eating efforts faster than just about anything else.  Negative self talk, your pessimistic inner critic, self-sabotaging expectations and negative emotions will bring anyone down—fast. If you are someone who uses food to cope or to comfort, you know that negativity can lead you right to your chocolate stash.

A lot is written about avoiding negativity, but what about understanding and nurturing positivity?

Barbara Fredrickson, PhD, is a Professor of Psychology and principal investigator of the Positive Emotions and Psychophysiology Laboratory at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She investigates incredible stuff like how even fleeting positive emotions can contribute to a life of flourishing. Her book, Positivity, is the result of many years of research.  She has some very compelling things to say about the hows and whys of tapping into our own unique sources of positive emotions.

Fredrickson says there is great value in looking at your positivity ratio, the ratio of positive to negative emotions experienced.  She has discovered that experiencing positive emotions in a 3-to-1 ratio with negative ones leads people to a “tipping point beyond which they naturally become more resilient to adversity and effortlessly achieve what they once could only imagine.” Are you paying attention now?

You can also visit her site and take a quiz to determine your positivity ratio.  Fredrickson recommends tracking your positivity ratio over time and working to emphasize the activities that bring more positivity into your life.

Take good care,

Melissa