ShareThisBy SHEENA McFARLAND
Friday, November 17, 2006
During the holidays, food seems to come out of every nook and cranny. And it's always a struggle to stop salivating sugarplum visions from becoming waistlines of bowls full of jelly.
But author Brian Wansink has a sack full of tips to keep the pounds from trickling up without destroying the holidays in his new book, "Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think" (Bantam, $25).
The Cornell University food psychologist has done countless experiments on unwitting diners at the university-run restaurant and food lab. He's used everything from discretely filling soup bowls from the bottom (diners swore they ate a normal amount of soup, when in fact they ate several times more) to offering wine from a fake North Dakota label (which made people enjoy their food less than those offered the same wine from a fake California label) to understand why people eat as much as they do.
He realizes the holidays provide even more temptation than usual, so here are some tips to help you focus on holiday weight traps and how to avoid them through diet and exercise.
This week focuses on mindless eating, and cutting back on calories that most people won't miss.
What makes Wansink's tips and tricks so palatable is that they don't feel like deprivation, just common sense.
"You can really enjoy the holidays without really having to sacrifice," he said. "Just by slightly re-engineering your environment, you can lose a little weight instead of gain it."
His basic premise is that food is everywhere, and it's easy to grab three or four handfuls of chocolate-covered peanuts without realizing it.
His first piece of advice? Literally watch the food go from your plate into your mouth. When you're engaged in conversation, take time to break eye contact with the person to look down at your plate. Be aware of what and how much you're eating.
Wing-Gaia, a nutrition instructor at the University of Utah and sports dietician at the Orthopedic Specialty Hospital, fully agrees.
"There is something called mindful eating, which is a little different and something we focus on at the hospital," she said. "The idea is to be truly present when you are eating."
It's awfully hard to pay attention to how many chocolate-dipped pretzels you have popped when you're lost in conversation at a party. You can eat at a party, just be cognizant of what you're loading up your plate with.
"In a social setting, there's a high distraction factor. We don't realize how much we eat, and we keep going on," Wansink said.
Laurie Allin, a Morrison, Colo., resident and fitness enthusiast, tries to plan before parties.
"I just try to do my best to control, and plan ahead. If I know I'm going to a party, I just know I have to eat really healthy around it," she said.
Confine the food you eat to what is on your plate and pick a small plate. That should help.
Carol Conners of West Valley City, Utah, also eats a salad or fruit before going to a feast, and keeps a baggie of cut-up veggies to snack on throughout the day. She also drinks plenty of water.
"A satisfied belly will not gorge," Conners said.
Here are three more tips from Wansink:
_ Make your great aunt Sally happy, but don't swallow: You know the great-aunt Sally type. She takes great pride in her chocolate-dipped pretzels and she wants to see you eat them, too. This is touchy, but Wansink suggests good old-fashioned deception. Grab one nibble, and then chuck the pretzel. Go back for seconds if it makes Sally's heart soar.
_ Don't sit next to the buffet: Instead of grabbing another brownie, you now have to get up and walk across the room. Not only does that take effort, but it takes thought, too. Wansink also employs the rule of two, meaning you can only take two different items from the buffet at a time.
_ Avoid overeating "low-fat" foods: Most people end up overeating low-fat foods because they assume they are healthy and don't have to worry about the calories. But Wansink's books shows that many low-fat foods have as many or more calories than regular foods.
"We tend to put a halo around low-fat food and we generally grossly underestimate how much we've eaten," he said. "With low-fat food, we end up eating 20 percent more calories than if we eat regular food."
It boils down to making conscious decisions about food. Enjoy the food you love, Wansink says, but do it with control and thought.
"Reducing a diet by 200 calories a day can translate into 20 pounds lost in a year," he said. "Most of us can very easily make some small changes that results in 20 or 30 pounds of loss in a year."
(Contact Sheena McFarland at smcfarland (at)sltrib.com. For more stories visit www.scrippsnews.com)
