Easy tricks to beat overeating from swapping plates to choosing the right song
It’s crunch time: Tucking into crisp food (not to be confused with crisps) could be key.
Diners consumed 26 per cent fewer calories when a meal had a harder texture, like crunchy salad, a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition found. The Dutch researchers believe subjects took in less overall because food took longer to eat and had to be chewed more. Meanwhile, researchers in Brigham Young University in the US found those who could hear themselves chewing ate 30 per cent less than people who couldn’t.
Handy hint: Try eating with the wrong hand. A study from the University of Southern California found people ate 30 per cent less popcorn at the cinema when they used their non-dominant hand.
Snap it: Chefs in top restaurants hate it, but try taking a photo of your food before you tuck in. Slimmers started to eat healthier food over time when they took pictures of their meals before eating them, an American study found.
Choosing the right plate type is important (Getty Images/iStockphoto)Chop chop: Cutting up your food into chunks and spreading out the pieces tricks your brain into making your portion seem bigger. That causes you to eat less, according to research at Shaanxi Normal University in China.
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Chew it over: Another trick to slow down your rate of eating – so that your brain has the vital time it needs to register that you feel full – is to try to put your cutlery down between every mouthful.
Turn off, tune in: A wealth of studies have shown that eating slowly and mindfully helps reduce the total amount you eat at a sitting. Research also found we eat more if we’re distracted – by the TV, for example – and linked distractions to people consuming 10 per cent extra.
Tone it down: If you are going to listen to music at mealtimes make sure you avoid up tempo beats – they tend to make us increase the rate we gobble. There’s a reason fast food chains pump out banging tunes.
Clean eating: Cut the clutter in your kitchen to help self-control, a study by the Cornell Food and Brand Lab in the US found. Apparently it can reduce mealtime calorie consumption by as much as half. So a good reason to start your spring clean early.
Reflect: Put up a mirror in the kitchen. A study published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research found that watching yourself chewing can stop you overeating.
Get fizz-ical: Drinking water with meals fills you up so you eat less. According to a study from the University of Hyogo in Japan carbonated water keeps food in your stomach longer, helping even further.
Size matters: Using a dinner plate half the standard size can reduce the amount you eat by 30 per cent, on average, according to a 2016 US study. Using smaller spoons could help too, say British researchers.
Colour code: Ditch white plates. Serving food on red ones reduced overall consumption by about 40 per cent during a trial published in the journal Appetite. Other studies suggest blue dishes can help in a similar way.
Tomato catch-up: It might be worth eating a tomato before your meal. Women who did this before lunch every day for a month dropped two pounds.
Sniff-ty idea: Certain smells seem to make you less likely to go for seconds. Vanilla scent has been found to help reduce calorie intake, while a study found that sniffing mint before eating led to an average 15lb weight loss over six months.
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