Book Recommendation: Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D.

     Mindless Eating is a really great book for someone looking to make small changes that are sustainable over time. It's also a book that you can read again every so often to remind yourself to pay more attention to your eating habits. The book is interesting because it isn't directly written as a guide to weight loss, but its strategies are definitely something that if applied can lead there. It is written more as a summary of Wansink's research which is absolutely eye opening and you will surely see some of yourself in the pages here!

 
     One example of what you will learn from Mindless Eating includes reducing the size of your plates and silverware in your home. Wansink points out that the size of our plates has grown significantly over the years and we therefore end up eating more! We grew up with our mothers telling us to clear our plates, and bigger plates leads to bigger portions! Larger silverware leads us to take bigger bites of food and often leads us to stuff ourselves before our brain can catch up with our stomach to signal that we are full!
     Another example from the book is how we are often unaware of how much we are eating and to make ourselves feel better we round down. In an experiment with two groups of subjects at a chicken wing dinner waitstaff cleared the bones from the tables of one group and not the other group. The subjects in the group where the bones were not cleared ate significantly less, likely because they had an obvious reminder of how much that had actually eaten!
     For more interesting tips and tricks to "out smart" your mind pick up a copy of Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D.

Cheers,
Brittney