How to Avoid Overeating - Part 1 of 2

Create Stop Signs

How to avoid overeating?

Consumption of food with some other activity such as watching television, talking over the telephone, or the like usually leads to overeating, for the mind remains preoccupied and does not take heed of “stop signs.”

Ways to avoid overeating by creating stop signs include:

• sitting down at the dining table and engaging only in eating not only helps in savoring the taste of the food but also leads to awareness of the bodies’ natural hunger signals.
• creating a stop sign or a natural break such as drinking water that disrupts the munching rhythm and helps regain control over the consumption.
• portioning out snacks into small quantities and keeping all but one portion out of reach. Studies show people are less likely to go for more food when the food is a couple of steps away compared to when the food is in front of the eyes.
• not clearing away the clutter until the end of the meal. A cluttered table with the plates not cleared is a reminder of the food consumed
• keeping a food journal. Jotting down every bit of food consumed leads to increased realization

Serve Small

The size of the serving or quantity of food available plays a big role in controlling overeating. People tend to use background objects as a benchmark for estimating the size. An experiment at Cornell University substantiates this fact by indicating people who serve themselves from a larger bowl eat 53 percent more food than people who serve themselves from a smaller bowl.

Controlling overeating by regulating the serving potion takes the following ways:

• using serving bowls that hold between four and six cups of food
• using a tablespoon rather than a larger serving spoon as the food dispenser
• using salad plates instead of full-sized dinnerware
• leaving space on the plate. A popular method is the 50/80 rule at buffets or leaving 50 percent of the plate empty on first visit, and 80 percent of the plate empty on the second visit.
• replacing short and wide glasses with tall and slim ones. People tend to perceive tall objects as larger than squat objects and are more likely to fill a short wide glass to the brim but stop short of the brim when pouring into a tall high-ball glass, when both these glasses hold the same amount of liquid.

Keep Food Out of Sight

Research establishes that people tend to eat with their eyes. Having food in plain sight tempts one to eat. The answer for how to avoid overeating lies in keeping treats, such as chocolates and snacks, out of reach and out of sight in opaque containers. Keeping fruit and healthy snacks in sight and within easy reach encourages eating such foods first.

While keeping food away from reach, it is important to ensure that one does not go overboard, deprive the body of essential nutrients, and fail to replenish the calories burnt.

Understand Overeating Habits

People usually associate the movies or watching television as the time to munch snacks, and tend to eat unconsciously or unmindfully during such occasions. For instance, most people tend to munch popcorns at movies irrespective of whether the pop corn available tastes bad or is stale.

People looking for ways to figure out how to control overeating would do well to perform a self introspection that leads to a conscious realization of their overeating habits and situations where they tend to overeat, and make a determined effort to stop such habitual eating.

Ways to make such a determined effort include:

• fasting
• keeping low fat, low calorie alternatives in place during occasions of overeating
• drinking water in excess

Eat Foods that Cause Feeling of Fullness

The stomach has three broad levels, stuffed, full, but with room for more, and starved. The ancient Chinese recommend eating only 70 percent full. When the stomach is full, there is no room to churn and digest food, and further intake remains undigested.

Most people, however, remain out of touch with their hunger signals and eat according to schedule not according to need. Such people also tend to eat whatever is put in front of them, stopping only when the plate or bowl is almost empty and not when they feel full. The key to control overeating is to replace the quantity of food in the plate as the indicator of fullness with the natural feeling in the stomach.

Some ways of controlling overeating through consumption of foods that induce fullness include

• drinking water at frequent intervals before, during and after meals
• taking small bites
• chewing slowly
• eating salads before lunch or dinner tends to curb the appetite

Among the various causes that prompt overeating are food addiction, leading a sedentary lifestyle, stress, and sleep deprivation. Although the above five tips answer the question of how to avoid overeating, identification and elimination of such root causes leads to fewer food cravings.

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References

1. Cicero, Karen and Devgan, Kavita. The Smartest Weight Loss Trick You’ll Ever Try. Prevention (December 2008).
2. Clark, Shannon. 6 Strategies to Control Your Waistline.
3. Morgan, Wendy. Tips To Control Over-Eating.

Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons