Mindless Eating - really recommended

[otchayaniye]

A fascinating book by a US professor of food psychology, Brian Wansink. It's not pitched as a weight loss (or gaining) book but has tips and ideas for cutting back about 100-200 calories a day -- that's the margin your brain doesn't figure it's missing out on.

It's interesting pretty much to everyone but I've had it lying around for about 2 years and it's really sunk in (and I've lost a stone in that time without trying or dieting -- lost another half stone, erm, getting pregnant and can't put it on which troubles me a little, but that's morning sickness for you)

Just really interesting experiments that show what is really going on when we buy and order and cook food. It's also got a chapter on children's eating.

A really good book that's not a diet book but which could help you lose weight (or gain it if that's your problem)

Im doing the opposite - mindful eating, along with the other Paul McKenna girls. how does thsi work exactly? Mindless eating is exactly why i weigh a lot more than I should!

Oh, basically Mindless Eating is what we do (it's hardwired for us to do this) to get fatter, but we can use the mindless margin (that amount of 100-200 calories of overeating some tend towards) and flip it the other way. Figure out what sort of eater you are (meal stuffer, party binger, grazer or combo) and make three small changes that will cut 100-200 calories out each day -- or most days.

Basically the mind is programmed not to be able to compute calorific changes of this small magnitude. Either way (200 calories too much, or 200 calories too little) Cut anything more and you run the risk of failure some way down the line because a human makes about 200 eating decisions a day -- watching and thinking about each and every one of these will be too hard to keep up. Some people can do it but it's hard to keep willpower.

So basically three very small changes (mine were half plate of veg, other side the meat and carb, making food trade offs want that ice cream, well, can;t have that starter start eating last and finish last) and you will really not notice that you are cutting back.

Anyway, these are just small tips peppered through the book. Much of it is really describing how people are fooled by eating. You can be convinced that choc icecream is strawberry if you eat it in the dark, experienced bartenders consistently overpour into short squat glasses (lesson: use tall thin ones if you want to drink less) you will eat less if plates aren't cleared away.

It's scientific, isn't preaching any method, is amusing and very interesting. It's also not anti-fast food and not anti food marketing but does explain how they persuade us to buy big and eat more.