Tag Archives: Eating

How to Lose Weight With Mindful Eating

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Do you have a hard time sticking to a meal plan or a diet program? Stop scheduling and counting—listening to your body might be the only direction you need.

According to a new study in the Journal of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics, eating mindfully—consuming food based on how hungry and full you feel throughout the day—can be just as effective for weight loss in adults with Type 2 diabetes as following a nutrition plan.

Study participants were divided into two treatment groups. One group followed a nutrition program that educated participants about healthy food choices, interpreting food labels, and rules for dining out. The second group did not receive specific nutrition objectives and was trained in a mindful approach to food selection and eating. People in both groups lost an average of 3 1/2 to 6 pounds and both reduced their blood sugar levels considerably after three months.

How does the mindful approach work? Lisa Young, PhD, RD and author of The Portion Teller, says a better understanding of your body can have a huge impact. “When you are more aware of your eating habits, you pay better attention to what, when, and why you are eating,” she says.

And the “why” may be the most important factor to consider. “Everyone has different reasons that cause them to overeat—some are bored, or sad, or happy, or dining in a group—but realizing what causes it can help you better monitor the habit,” Young says.

Want to incorporate a more mindful method to your day? Try these three tips.

Keep a Food Diary
By tracking what you consume, you can better highlight the reasons you eat and which parts of the day you are most hungry. Use the journal not only to note which kinds of foods and how much you eat, but also to track your level of hunger. “Eat just enough to keep yourself in the middle of the scale,” Young says. “If you are at a one [starving], you tend to not make healthy choices.”

Chew Slowly
Eating slower and taking smaller bites will also help you be more in tune with what your body needs, says Young.  And don’t forget to make friends with your dishes! “Do not eating standing and do not eat out of the box—put all your food on a plate or in a bowl,” Young says. By pre-plating your food, it is easier to eyeball correct portions and the visual cue will assist your resolve at the end of your meal.

Snack Smart
Can’t help but nibble? Reach for Young’s snack of choice—popcorn. She likes it because it is a whole grain (the fiber helps you feel fuller longer), and you don’t have to stop at just one kernel. “Three cups of popcorn is a serving, so you get a lot more bang for your buck,” she says. Turn your next bowl into a superstar snack with these six yummy popcorn recipes.

Image: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

More from WH:
The Hunger Paradox
Lose Weight with Portion Control
The Truth About Serving Sizes

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5 Ways to Trick Yourself Into Eating Less

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Apparently, the key to Kelly Osbourne’s recent weight loss isn’t what she eats—it’s how she eats it. An anonymous source told Now magazine that the reality star is staying thin by eating only from plates that contrast with the color of her food.

“She takes her plates everywhere. Unlike other fads, Kelly says this diet does help you lose weight and keep it off,” said the source.

While this B.Y.O. plate diet may seem too strange to be true, there is actually some pretty compelling science to explain how plate color can impact how much you eat (and in turn, weigh). A well-documented optical illusion theory called the Delboef illusion is the key, says Koert Van Ittersum, associate professor of marketing at Georgia Institute of Technology and author of numerous studies that explore how perception influences eating behavior. The Delboeuf illusion occurs when the perceived size of a circle–or in this case, serving size of food–is dependent on the size of the circle that surrounds it—in this case, a plate. As Osbourne has found, color contrast can amplify this illusion.

“Our brains play a little trick on us and try to combine both circles into one piece of information,” says Van Ittersum. The result? The same size serving can appear smaller or larger based on the size and color of the plate, affecting how much food we serve ourselves. Check it out for yourself:


Set the Table to Curb Your Consumption
Play these five mind games on your tummy to help shrink it.

Take a taller tumbler. When researchers asked 198 college students and 86 bartenders to pour a 1.5 oz shot of alcohol without measuring, they found that even experienced bartenders poured 20.5% more into short, wide glasses than tall, slender ones, according to a 2005 study published in the journal BMJ. When serving yourself a cocktail or other sugar-laden liquids such as juice or regular soda, use a taller glass to trick your brain into pouring less and you’ll painlessly slurp down fewer calories.

Downsize your dishes. In a 2003 study published in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine, 85 nutrition experts who were given large bowls at an ice cream social unknowingly served themselves 31% more ice cream than those given smaller bowls. To avoid accidentally serving yourself a super-sized portion, use small plates and bowls. The best part: your stomach won’t even know the difference. The same study found that adults who served themselves cereal in smaller bowls thought they’d consumed 28% more cereal than they actually ate.

On a small plate, match your food. Contrary to Osbourne’s bright idea to eat foods that contrast with the color of her plate, Van Ittersum recommends matching the food to the plate–but only once you’ve downsized. When researchers asked adults to serve themselves white cereal on a small white plate, they served themselves smaller portions than the adults who poured dark-colored cereal on the same plates, according to a 2011 study published in Journal of Consumer Research.

Stuck with a large plate? Make your portion pop. When participants of the 2011 study were given white plates, they served themselves more white-sauce pasta than they did when given red plates. When eating off a large plate, make sure it contrasts with the color of your food to trick yourself into serving–and eating–less.

Coordinate your tableware and tablecloth. According to Van Ittersum, using like-colored linens can camouflage the edge of the plate, reducing the optical illusion so you can see your food serving for what it is, instead of comparing it to the size of the plate.

main photo: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

More from WH:
Weight Loss Tips that Don’t Suck
Delicious Dessert Recipes for Weight Loss
12 Flat-Belly Foods

Look Better Naked: Buy the book to learn how to look (and feel!) your very best.

 

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Lady Gaga: Eating Disorders and “A Body Revolution”

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Lady Gaga is used to people critiquing the way she looks, but mostly as it pertains to her fashion choices (meat dress, anyone?). But after a stop on her “Born this Way” tour in Amsterdam last Tuesday, the press attacked her for a different reason: her weight.

A story on dailymail.co.uk had a headline that began “Looking meatier!” and included shots from her recent show where she appeared in a “meat” corset contrasted with a photo from a 2009 concert.

Gaga told radio host Elvis Duran that she gained weight recently and was trying to work it off. “I’m dieting right now, because I gained, like, 25 pounds,” she said on air. “I really don’t feel bad about it, not even for a second.”

And yet, the vicious headlines and internet posts maligning Gaga’s weight gain continued. Finally, on Tuesday, Gaga responded on her social media website Littlemonsters.com. She posted several photos of herself in her underwear with this caption:

Bulimia and anorexia since I was 15.

lady gaga eating disorder

photo: Littlemonsters.com

 

This wasn’t the first time Gaga has talked openly about her history with disordered eating: In a February interview with Maria Shriver, Gaga revealed that she was bulimic in high school and it got so bad that it damaged her voice.

Disordered eating has been making headlines a lot recently, with Gaga’s bulimia post only the most recent example. For instance, earlier this week Katie Couric and Demi Lovato discussed their own personal struggles with eating disorders, including Couric’s bulimia in her 20s, on Monday’s episode of Couric’s new show, “Katie.”

As we reported in the April 2012 issue of Women’s Health, eating disorders are on the rise in adult women. While troubling to learn about, it’s a positive step in the right direction for celebrities like Lady Gaga, Demi Lovato, and Katie Couric to bring so much attention to such a serious, and often stigmatized, issue.

Another positive step: Gaga added a few extra lines to her pictures. They read:
today I join the BODY REVOLUTION.
To Inspire Bravery.
and BREED some m$ therf*cking COMPASSION

With her pictures and words, she created a section on her site called “A Body Revolution,” where she instructs fans to “Be brave and celebrate with us your ‘perceived flaws,’ as society tells us. May we make our flaws famous, and thus redefine the heinous.” As a result, fans have since joined her cause, posting their own stories and pictures about recovering from eating disorders, battling cancer, suffering from skin diseases, and more.

TELL US: What do you think about the media response to Lady Gaga’s weight gain? What are your thoughts on her Body Revolution message?

More from WH:
The Scary Rise in Adult Eating Disorders
New Eating Disorders
Body-Confidence Barriers

You Being Beautiful
Find easy ways to look and feel good fast in Dr. Oz’s book You Being Beautiful
 
 
 

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Eating Moldy Food: When It’s OK, When It’s Not

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“, board_url: “http://www.health.com/health/gallery/comments/0,,20392188,00.html”});Comment.render_comments_count();}); Vignette StoryServer 6.0 Mon Aug 20 11:41:40 2012 S
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prev1 of 18nextEwwww…gross!

By Sarah Klein

Even if you refrigerate promptly, moldy food is still a fact of life.

But is it safe to eat? Sometimes yes, and sometimes no. “The average person doesn’t know which mold is harmful,” says Michael P. Doyle, PhD, the director of the Center for Food Safety at the University of Georgia, in Athens, Ga.

Mold can cause allergic reactions and produce toxic substances called mycotoxins and aflatoxins. This guide, adapted from the USDA, can help you decide if a moldy food is safe to eat.

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The Dangers of Eating Canned Foods

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bpa side effects: canned foodBy now, you’ve likely heard about the health effects of Bisphenol A (BPA), the plastic-hardening chemical used in canned food linings and in other consumer products too numerous to list. (It can have negative effects on the brain, behavior, and prostate glands and has been linked to increased risk of diabetes and cardiovascular disease.)

And maybe you stopped using plastic water bottles and eating canned food. But if you haven’t yet made a change, or your vigilance has lessened, listen up: A new study implicates BPA as negatively affecting the health of not just those who ate BPA-laden food but also of four generations of their children. Considering that BPA is found in 90 percent of Americans’ blood, that’s a lot of children who could potentially be impacted by an innocent-seeming can of spaghetti and meatballs.

The new study, published in the journal Endocrinology, examined the trans-generational effects of BPA on mice. The researchers fed BPA-laden food to one set of mouse mothers and regular food to another, then monitored the behavior of their pups and that of three subsequent generations. The scientists also submitted the animals to genetic testing.

The mice that were directly exposed to BPA in the womb were less social and more isolated than the other group. They spent less time exploring their cages and engaging with other mice. But by the third generation, the behavior had flipped. The BPA-exposed mice were more social and engaged than the other mice. While that may sound like a good thing, it isn’t. It simply means that the chemical continues to influence brain activity for generations, the authors wrote in their study.

In fact, some of the behavioral issues they saw in all generations of mice were similar to those seen in autistic children and children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. “Autism is characterized by a reduction in social interactions and we observed some declines in social interaction in the BPA-exposed mice,” says Emilie F. Rissman, the study’s lead investigator and a professor of biochemistry and molecular genetics at the University of Virginia School of Medicine.

As for genetics, the researchers found in all four generations of BPA-exposed mice that the chemical changed how estrogen receptors were switched off and on. They also saw changes in the way that two other hormones acted in the mice’s brains—oxytocin, the “love hormone,” and vasopressin, which influences hostile behaviors and reactions to stress.

What was interesting—and disturbing—about this study was that the researchers exposed the mice to levels of BPA that humans would normally be exposed to in their diets. “Mouse behavior and human behavior are miles apart,” says Rissman. But because mouse and human genetics are so similar, the animals are a good laboratory model for what could be happening in people, she adds.

Here are the best ways to keep BPA out of body:

• Ditch canned food. Cans are lined with an epoxy resin that’s made with BPA, and that includes things like soup, canned beans, and soda. Look for aseptic cartons, glass jars, and frozen foods as alternatives.

• Swap to glass containers. Rather than store your leftovers in plastic tubs, use glass or ceramic containers and dishes. Stainless steel containers make great substitutes for plastic lunch bags and takeout clamshells.

• Don’t be duped by “BPA-free” plastics. A study in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives found that those seemingly better plastics can contain BPA alternatives that are even more harmful.

• Decline receipts. They’re coated with a BPA-based coating that rubs off onto your fingers and whatever else it comes in contact with.

• Be wary of dental sealants. BPA is the most commonly used dental sealant material, and it’s used in composite fillings used to treat dental cavities. A recent study linked BPA in dental treatments to social problems in children, as well, prompting pediatricians to call on dentists to find other materials. However, because BPA is the most durable protective alternative in many dentists’ toolboxes, they’re currently reluctant to use other materials (and considering that the other primary filling alternative is mercury, the alternatives can be just as bad). Preventing cavities and tooth decay is your best bet here: Brush regularly and visit your dentist for regular cleanings.

photo: iStockphoto/Thinkstock

More from WH:
BPA Found in Can Linings
Best Reusable Water Bottles
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