Be Mindful of your eating
- ciaralitchfield
- Nov 26, 2014
- 3 min read
Eating can be triggered by a huge range of things such as hunger, emotional cues, social situations and general cravings. The key is to remain mindful of what and how much you are eating whatever the situation.
Distraction
When you become absent minded in your eating you tend to eat more. A prime cause of this is distraction, let’s take the example of eating in front of the TV. In a recent study 2 groups of people were given endless amount of cake. The first group were shown a TV show and told they would be asked questions about the show. The second group had no TV and were told they would be asked questions about the cakes they were eating. The group who were distracted by the TV show ate a total of 626 calories each, 126 calories more than the group that were mindfull of what they were eating. This equates to a 25% increase in calorie consumption just by not focusing on what you are eating. Removing distractions from meal times enables you to concentrate on your meal and pay closer attention to feelings of fullness.
Ease
The amount of effort put into eating and the ease of access to the food hugely influences how much we eat. In this study groups were given popcorn to eat while watching a movie. Half were told to wear oven gloves on their dominant hand. Increasing the difficulty associated with eating the popcorn decreased their overall intake by 60%! The group were forced to change their easy automatic eating habits to accommodate the oven glove. Eating with the glove was nearly impossible so many were forced to use their non dominate hand which was not as natural. This creates a more conscious effort and makes the eating more controlled. To increase the control you have over your snacking try eating with a different hand or replacing the lid onto the box where your snacks are stored after each piece. This slows and controls you eating leading to less calories consumed.
Sight
Out of sight is out of mind. Here half a office were given clear bowls of sweets to eat while the others had opaque bowls. The group with the opaque bowls ate 71% less as they could not see the sweets, preventing visual cues. The second part took place in different departments. This time the sweets were in the same bowls but 1/3 were put in the workers draws, 1/3 on their desks and 1/3 a short walk away. On average the workers ate 6 sweets if they were in their drawn, 9 if they were on their desk and only 4 if they had to walk to them. In general we eat 6 times as much if we can see the food on offer. Hide your snacks away in opaque tubs and cupboard to prevent over eating.
Evidence
In yet another study into why we over eat Dr Lewis invited a group of people to watch a comedy show. While watching they are all given an endless supply of chicken wings. Half the group have their chicken bones cleared away regularly so they can’t see how much they have eaten while the other half has to pile up their bones on the side of their plate. The results showed that the group who had the evidence removed ate a huge 70% more than those who had the evidence in front of them. This shows that keeping a visual record of how much you have eaten allows you to judge if you should eat more. Try keeping wrappings of what you eat over a day buy your fridge. The next time you go to get more food you will see the evidence of what you have already eaten. This allows you to make a more informed choice of if you should continue eating or stop. It may also act as a guilt trigger pushing you to reduce portions or make healthier decisions in future.
