Beating Mindless Eating

Think of the food decisions you make at home, at work, and in between. In total, how many food decisions do think you make in a day?

Most people guess between 20 and 30. Do you want yogurt or Froot Loops? Do you want coffee with sugar and cream or do you want it black?   

But it’s not just what we eat, it’s whether you pour a little or a lot, how much milk you pour, if you pour seconds, whether you have toast, what you put on it, whether you eat it before or after a piece of fruit, whether pour a second bowl of cereal, and so on. Many people make 20-30 food decisions simply during breakfast. When you get to work, you make a food decision every time you look at the donut in the break room and say “No."

Every time you look at the candy dish on your desk, you make a food decision whether to take one or whether you look away.  What we’ve found is the normal weight person makes about 200 decisions about food a day -- heavy people make even more.  

The problem is that most of us aren’t really that conscious that we’re making all of these decisions, so we can easily be influenced first thing in the morning by the size of our cereal bowl, and then whether we're snacking while answering email, what food's offered first in the cafeteria, or whether somebody brought a birthday cake and we can smell it.

?For most of us, the solution to Mindless Eating is not mindful eating. It’s not to be aware of all 200 of these decisions.  That would take most of our day.  Instead, the solution is to set up our life -- at work and at home -- so that these 200 decisions we make guide us to eating a little less or a little better. If the size of your cereal bowl is leading you to eat too much, it’s easier to use a smaller bowl than to repeat to yourself, “Pour less, pour less, pour less.”  Using a smaller bowl is a resolution we could all keep.