Mindless Eating

I am reading a new book my new principal loaned to me.  Actually, she was lending it to another teacher, I overheard, said I'd like to borrow it after, but since the principal gave her two books to read, the teacher let me have this one first.  It's called "Mindless Eating," and I don't have the name of the author on hand as I write right now, and as it's 6:30 a.m., I don't feel like getting up. 

I am about one-third through the book.  It is primarily about  a lot of scientific studies showing that we humans have many more reasons than hunger to eat.  I want to share tidbits of what I read that either surprised me, or confirmed a fact that I already knew.  Anything in quotes is a quote from the book, otherwise, just a paraphrase:

p.29  "No one goes to bed skinny and wakes up fat.  Most people gain (or lose) weight so gradually they can't really figure out how it happened."  Amen.

p.32  If you cut out a regular daily item from your diet, divide the calories in that item by ten, and that's how much you'd potentially lose in a year (one 270 calorie candy bar divided by ten = 27 lb. loss in one year)

p.34  When plating your food, give yourself 20% less than you think you want, but with fruit/vege, give yourself 20% more.

p.45 "Volume trumps calories.  We eat the volume we want, not the calories we want."  True dat.

p.53  Obese people tend to underestimate how much they eat by 30-40%.

p.54 As items get larger, we underestimate them by a greater margin, doesn't matter skinny or fat.  Obese people just tend to eat larger meals more often.

p.56  Here's something I can see both sides to, but I tend to disagree.  They suggest pre-plating what you want, not a smaller portion then going back for 2nds and 3rds.  I think people tend to get 2nds out of habit, so plating a larger amount from the start spells doom.  I tell my girls to take a smaller portion, then decide if they really want more.  I never force them to "clean their plate" but I also think that wasting food is, well... a waste.  I'd rather they learn to take a smaller portion, and then decide if they really want more, or perhaps have some dessert or a treat a little later, rather than both.  Where I think pre-plating is the best for ME is with something like chips.  I eat WAY too many, even now, if I eat them from the bag, with the "just one more" syndrome.  If I pre-plate chips and dip, then when I'm done, I'm done.

p.59  We consume more when taking food from bigger packages.  Also, we eat more if there's a bigger variety.  People ate MORE M&M's when there were 10 colors in the bowl instead of 7, or if they received a bigger bag. 

p.63 Use a tall skinny glass and small plates/bowls/spoons.

p.70 Serve food in smaller serving bowls and people will take less.

The other thing I disagreed with, but I'm not sure what page, is that they gave the usually suggestions for a restaurant: send the bread basket away, split a meal, but then they gave two suggestions I disagree with.  One is "Or order two appetizers instead."  Really?  Most appetizers are HIGHLY fattening and quite big for one person.  The other is, they said "Use the 'Pick Two' rule:  Pick two of these - drink, appetizer, dessert."  I think that the meal should be included in there, in other words, pick two out of drink, appetizer, meal, dessert.  Having two of the others PLUS a meal seems like WAY too much if you are trying to eat in a balanced way. 

p.99.  "Weight can be inherited, but it can also be contagious."  Double amen to that one!  I get so aggravated when people say "Cancer runs high in my family, so I'll probably get it, so why should I quit smoking/eating bad/etc.?"  Same is true for weight.  I could say that I inherited it genetically from my mom and her mom, and while that's partially true, didn't we also see our predecessor shop, cook, their attitude about food/diets/holidays/celebrations/comfort/exercise, etc.?  Maybe if I still die of  congestive heart failure, it can be at an older age than my mom, or not be plagued with the wide variety of other things that she had that made the last years of her life so miserable.  Maybe I won't have to be on so many medications that cause complex side effects and diseases themselves.  I am trying to DO something about it, so that even if it might be too late to change some of my health problems that they also had, maybe I can change things for my girls.  But I'm hoping it'll change things for me too.  :-)