Over time, our clothes may tell us that we’ve overeaten, but how do we know if we’re having too much when we’re smack in the middle of dinner?
How do you know you’re full?
Short of eating until it hurts, most of us seem to rely on size – the volume – of the food to tell us when we’re full. We usually try to eat the same visible amount of food we’re used to eating. That is, we want the same size lunch that we did yesterday, the same size dinner, the same size popcorn, and so on.
This ends up actually being an advantage, because it holds a key to painlessly eating less calories.
We eat by volume, not by calories!
Apparently, based on thousands of hours of meticulous lab studies, we’re pretty much clueless about when we’ve had enough to eat. While it’s hard to calculate calories, it’s easy to eyeball a portion size. We know that we’ll be full if we eat a full plate of food, and we’ll be half-full if we eat only a half-full plate of food.
A scientist at the Centre for Behavioural Nutrition found that if you make a quarter-pounder hamburger look the same size as a half-pounder by adding lettuce, tomato, onion and not squishing it down before serving it, a hungry person that is used to eating a half-pounder, will eat it and rate themselves as equally full after lunch is over.
Our eyes are smaller than our stomach?!
Scores of studies have shown that we typically eat about the same amount, or volume of food, each day, and even at each meal. This is great news for dieters! It means they can cut the calories, but, as long as they add enough garden greens and veggies to fill the plate to the usual volume, they’ll feel as full as if they’d eaten the plate with the extra calories!
So, reduce your plate size and pile it full of half the calories! You’ll feel full and lose weight!
