do you know how much you eat without looking? no!

[acroyear]

Self-refilling bowls: An idea whose time should never come : Cognitive Daily:

One "trick" dieters often use is to put their food on a smaller plate. The idea is to fool yourself into thinking you're eating more food than you really are. But doesn't our stomach tell us how full we are?

Actually, it doesn't. Brian Wansink has devoted his career to studying how perception of food intake relates to actual eating behavior. Together with James Painter and Jill North, he's come up with a dramatic demonstration of how wrong our stomachs can be.

Comments

[dawntreader]

i completely concur with the smaller plate/smaller bowl theory. you feel like you've had a whole portion or full plate because your plate looks full and not like some meager, teeny portion on a big big plate.

whether the portion is actually the same size or not, it's psychological. but then, a lot of eating and overeating problems are psychological too. they have nothing to do with what the body actually wants or needs.

those studies are dead on. it's shocking what a difference it makes.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

the economy and the nature of decisions based on money also figure into it. if you order something costing $20, you damn well better get your $20 worth. yeah, you could do that for some items by taking leftovers home and having lunch the next day, but not every food can do that (it's not always a good idea with seafood, for example). so if you know one particular item on the plate is the most expensive (usually the meat), you finish that whether you need to or not...and that's usually at the expense of the healthier veggies you avoid in order to keep room for that expensive meat.

[dawntreader]

true too. a lot of people purposely don't eat salads before a meal because it fills them up. isn't that the point?

free food also has an effect on the nature of my decisions. e.g., if the company is paying for my meals, i tend to order/eat more stuff to max out THEIR money's worth. heh. while it feels good to "stick it to them" as it were, it's counter-productive. so i try to remember to eat sensibly as if i were ordering and paying for myself.

or at pot-lucks, or parties, if it's out there and free, what am i doing? constantly grazing to stock up for hibernation or something!? ugh. i hate that.

[acroyear70.livejournal.com]

well, potlucks aren't a problem for me 'cause i hate stuff like chicken salad and cold pasta casseroles which are the norm, and have generally learned to control chips over the last few months (nuts, on the other hand? still a problem...)

[dawntreader]

you and TWD have that in common. he hates most casserole anythings, hot OR cold. i on the other hand LOOOVE chicken salad and pasta salads. i take "just a dollop" of everything which adds up very fast.

i'm much better about chips too. i at least count them out! sometimes i count out a second serving, but at least i count them instead of wondering where all the chips went. :D

at least nuts are better overall than chips, even if they do have fat. it's the so-called 'good' fat. i hate nuts.

[thelongshot.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I tend to use the smaller plates at home when I eat. It helps.

What doesn't help is that when there's extra left around and I feel compelled to eat it. I do sometimes resist that temptation, but as you say, there are some things that don't work well as leftovers...