If you are diagnosed with diabetes, you undoubtedly need to make few changes to your life style in which your regular diet is on top of the list, because food does have the direct and powerful impact on how you feel, on your glucose levels, on your weight, and your risks for diabetes complications, but this does not mean that you have to give up all your favorite food, although there is a little need to be conscious in the selection of calories, which requirement varies from person to person.
In this article we are going to discuss the phenomena of mindless eating, which describes that everyone of us overeat not because of hunger but because of family and friend, packages and plates, names and number, labels and lights, colors and candles, shapes and smells and distractions and distances.
Don’t be afraid this article is not about dietary extremism it is about reengineering your environment so that you can eat what you want without guilt and without gaining weight.
Here are some reasons as to why we mindlessly eat:
- We usually overeat when the serving size is big because this is human psychology and our culture that people eat until they clean their plates, and big spoon big bites. Big plates big servings.
- Deprivation is another reason for mindless overeating for example; if you strive at one time so next time you consider yourself to be fit for having double meal.
- We even eat more while our attention is divert, for example while you are watching movie or drama you will we eat more than usual because your attention is towards the TV and your are not enjoying your food and your brain unable to give you the message of full and contented. So live in the moment. Taste and enjoy your food.
- Another reason is social pressure this is our cultural norm that we always associated our respect with the presentation of food by the host so when we go to some one place host and the other people insist us to have things which are most of the time not good for us but we have because of social pressure.
You can avoid the mindless eating traps with the help of following tricks.
- Use small and heavy spoon as the small spoons helps you to multiply your bites.
- If you want to reduce the amount of food but the empty plate induce the feeling of deprivation then you have to use small and shallow plates for your serving ,it helps you to see more food, for the sake to see more food in your plate you can also fill more portion of your plate with salads.
- Eat 5-6 times a day it actually means that you must divide your total calories among 6 times of your day, it reduce the feeling of deprivations which encourages you to eat less.
- Assertive training is needed to avoid persuaders in which positive no helps the individual to avoid social pressure regarding calorie intake.
- Try not to be the plate finisher. This is our clue that we are done eating is that our plates are clean. Try always leaving a piece of food on your plate.
- Use your eyes to your advantage, our stomach can’t count so you have rely to a large degree on your eyes. The bigger something looks the less of it you will eat. This is why soup is generally so healthy: the amount of water in it causes people to feel full when they actually are full — rather than a few hundred calories later.
- Convenience leads to consumption less distance with food increases the probability to have it.
You can easily break the trap of mindless eating by applying these simple tips but remember excellence is simply a habit. Start now. Not later.