5 WAYS YOU MAY BE OVEREATING WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT

5 WAYS YOU MAY BE OVEREATING WITHOUT EVEN REALISING IT

By lifehack.org - Ashley Palmer

There’s nothing more frustrating than working hard towards a goal and not seeing any progress.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight, maybe you can relate: you start making changes to your food, adding in more fresh produce and eating out less, yet after the first few pounds, the weight just doesn’t seem to budge. This dilemma leads many people to try extreme and unsustainable strategies for losing weight.

When I coach weight loss clients and they aren’t seeing the results they were expecting, we don’t start meticulously counting calories, controlling portions, or cutting out entire food groups. Instead, we focus on uncovering the underlying reasons why each person may be eating just a little bit too much. Once these underlying concerns are addressed, it becomes much easier to create consistent weight loss without going hungry or feeling deprived.

Here are five of the biggest reasons why you may be overeating without even realizing it, and how you can create solutions that will work for you.

1). Your meal looks too small

There’s a well known saying that chefs love: “you eat with your eyes first.” This is true not only because beautiful food seems to taste better, but interestingly, also because food that appears larger is more filling than food that appears smaller.

The research of Dr Barbara J. Rolls, author of the The Ultimate Volumetrics Diet has shown that a variety of foods injected with air, whether it be cheese puffs or milkshakes left people more satisfied while consuming fewer calories. Even a partially smashed hamburger will be less satisfying than one where the bun and lettuce and toppings haven’t been condensed together.

While the skeptics will say that larger volumes of food also are more filling to the stomach, remember we’re talking about air here. Air does not fill up the stomach and prevent room for more food as fiber or water would, suggesting that our brains and visual cues play a large role in determining whether or not our food is satisfying.

The solution to tiny meals: pump up the volume. While we may not have the means to inject our food with air, and volumizing conditioner won’t work here, we can increase the veggie content of each meal. By adding more veggies to each meal, you pump up the volume of the meal and help yourself feel more satisfied with less food.

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