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Is your mindless eating out of control?
Nutrition is 80 % of the equation when it comes to meeting your fitness goals! Sometimes starting a new “diet” can seem too daunting but what if I told you you can make a few small changes in your munching that will make some MAJOR changes in your body? Mindless eating can completely sabotage all of that hard work you put into your workouts and meal planning (You ARE meal planning aren’t you?).
What is mindless eating?
You casually pass through the kitchen and there is half a cookie just sitting so lonely on the baking pan. You grab it and keep moving without a second thought…35 calories
Or…
Your kids didn’t eat all of their dinosaur nuggets and you wouldn’t want them to go to waste so you just cleanup that plate before washing the dishes…It’s just 2 little pieces…98 calories
Or what about…
It’s dinner clean up time and there’s not quite enough tortellini to save for another meal. I mean who ever ate ⅓ C of pasta? Soooo….124 calories
Well that’s 257 calories right there! Do this every day of the week and you have just eaten enough to add ½ pound to your body. Do it every day of the year and you’ve gained 25 pounds!
Did you know that we have 200 choices to make regarding food each day and only one choice regarding exercise. (to do it, or not do it)
Let’s get this mindless eating dialed in right now before the summer weather hits and we start pulling out last year’s spring and summer wardrobe only to find it’s a bit snug
It’s just so easy to overeat on little nibble at a time
Here are my top tips to help you keep your mindless eating under control
Top Tip #1
Plan your meals – This is my very best tip for you! When you have a clearly laid out plan for your breakfast, lunch dinner AND snacks, it is very easy to know when you might be falling out of line. Prepping your food will help you take this tip a step further. Making the right things to eat the easiest things to eat will make healthy foods handy when you get that urge to munch mindlessly.
Being prepared is your best defense against mindless eating
The first step is to make a list of healthy, on-the-go foods that you enjoy eating. Make sure that you include things with healthy fats, protein and fiber. If you’re needing a post workout snack make sure it has carbs to help replenish the fuel you put out during your workout.
When you are very hungry, you need to have all the macronutrients covered in order to get quick energy, satisfy your hunger and clear your brain fog. This does not have to be a complete meal, but it needs to be balanced enough to substitute for one if needed.
When you go to the trouble to prep some healthy snacks you will eat them when in need. Here are my favorite snacks and meals to have on hand
- Unsalted nuts. These will provide protein and good fat while keeping you satiated. Keep an eye on portion sizes here calories and fat from nuts can add up fast. Keep portions to about the size of one of your thumbs
- Hard boiled eggs
- Cut up vegetables and hummus – When you eat veggies you’ll be taking in the micronutrients your body needs. Your cells will be satisfied causing you to crave less
- Prepared salad
- Baked chicken breast cut up into snack sized pieces
- Protein Balls – These are great when I feel the need for a little treat.
Are you stumped about snacks? I’ve got you covered. Click the button to snag my favorite healthy snack recipes.
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Top tip #2
Don’t eat while distracted – Watching TV or a movie while eating has been shown to cause people to eat
10% more calories at the time. This could easily add up the the extra 200 calories that is keeping you from reaching your goal. Studies have also shown that eating while distracted can cause you to eat 25% more later in the day! Not only are we not paying attention to the amount of food we are eating while watching TV but we can be very heavily influenced by the enticing food seen in commercials
Better yet…Cut back on TV watching all together. It has been proven that people that watch TV not only exercise less but they eat more…especially when they eat while watching TV. In the book Mindless Eating a study showed that people that watched 60 minutes of TV ate 28% more than people that watched only 30 minutes
Top Tip #3
Don’t eat straight out of the bag. Studies have shown that when you can’t actually see the quantity of food you are eating you will eat. Participants who unknowingly ate from bottomless soup bowls ate 73% more soup, but they did not believe they had eaten more or were more sated than those eating from normal bowls.
Top Tip #4
Control your portions – Shopping at bulk warehouses might be good for you budget but not your butt (Sorry! I just had to say it!) Large portions lead to supersized appetites.. Change your personal environment to change your behavior. If you have a extra large bag of Stacy’s chips you are more likely to eat them in larger portions.
-Buy items in smaller serving sizes.
-If purchasing bargain-sized items, re-portion food items into serving sizes
-At a restaurant ask for half your order to be placed to-go.
-At home replace your 12” plate with a slightly smaller 9” plate.
-Keep large food containers and packages off the counter or in a high up location where they are a little less convenient to get at and they are not constantly in your face…Out of sight out of mind definitely applies to mindless munching
But How Do I Stop?
Here’s a good start to get your mindless chomping under control (But read to the end because I have something GREAT for you!)
- When creating new habits it is always helpful to find a replacement for the activity that you are removing. For example, if you are planning to watch less TV, schedule yourself for a 30 minute walk to fill the time, or take a bath or read a book.
- Try not to graze all day…It is so easy to forget what you actually ate. In addition, grazing doesn’t really fill us up so we feel like we are never really satisfied so we keep going back for more.
- Kno
w your numbers: When you walk through the kitchen and grab a little somethin somethin, or clean of a plate I want you to jot it down…Don’t stop yourself just eat the snack, jot it down and move on. (Yes! I just told you to eat the snack! ) Then, at the end of the day I want you to calculate the calories using a tool like www.calorieking.net or your food tracking app …. This can be incredibly eye opening! Remember that it takes and excess of 3500 calories to make a pound of fat. If you ate the excess calories that your snacks totaled up to every day, how long would it take you to gain a pound of body weight? - Don’t eat standing up – You’ll find that you eat more and usually more of the wrong things when you practice “drive by” eating.
- Chew your food slowly – This will not only digest the food you are eating more fully but it will give you brain time to register how full you are helping you to stopping eating at appropriate times.
None of us start our day with the intention of overeating but we are so easily influence by family, friends, smells, labels, distractions, ads, and packaging of foods. The struggle is real but knowing these tips can help you stay on track.
There are a lot more mindful eating tactics than listed in this article so I created a treat for you! The Mindful Eating Mastery Guide.
In this free guide you’ll be given:
- Simple daily practices for a month leading you one step at a time to more mindful munching
- Mini challenges to open your eyes to poor eating habits you didn’t even know you had!
- A portion control guide
- A satiation chart to help you know when to start and stop eating
And… If you change these simple habits you will most likely lose some weight the easy way!
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