A while ago I talked about “calorie amnesia”.  You’re sitting at dinner and try to remember what you ate during the day because you would really like dessert.  You remember that you had a small breakfast and lunch so you go ahead and eat that piece of left over birthday cake. 

What you forgot was that you had a blueberry glazed doughnut that your co-worker brought in that morning (in addition to your breakfast).  And you sampled a piece or two of the brownies that someone else brought in later that day.  So now you’ve done it - you’ve eaten about 600 extra calories! We grossly underestimate the amount of calories we consume up to 40%. It adds up (a good idea is to prevent this is to try journaling).

Don’t rely on your stomach to count.  Even if it could, most of our stomachs would be really bad at math.  We all know that we overeat for various reasons.  It takes about 20 minutes for your stomach to signal your brain that you’re full and most of us eat really fast. 

Your stomach can’t count how many ounces of chocolate you helped yourself to at the receptionist’s desk this past week or count how many pieces of popcorn you ate at the movies (well, I suppose you could, but that would be kind of weird).  Most of us decide how much we are going to eat even before we eat anything. 

We think about how much we want, scoop it onto a plate and eat it or we order a venti Frappuccino and drink that as opposed to a tall. Try this: take away some of the pasta and add in some veggies to your spaghetti.  It’s an easy way to cut calories. 

Another trick is to change up your dishes.  Instead of using a 10 inch dinner plate, use a 7 inch salad plate - a scoop of mashed potatoes looks like more on the smaller plate.

A lot of us are afraid to waste food.  We were conditioned as children to clean our plates because there are starving children all over the world!  And of course we are all watching our spending and don’t want to be wasteful there, either.  “A value meal with a double patty burger and extra large French fries is cheaper than a hamburger and small French fries - what a deal” we tell ourselves, and eat the entire meal.

If you are in a situation where you have to decide between spending $1.00 more for a smaller portion or gaining one extra pound, which would you choose? 

It’s better to be a wasteful than “waistfull”!

Related Posts:
Mindless Eating, Part I
Eat Less. Move More.
Food Journals for Beginners

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