Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink, Ph.D.
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“Mindless eating” seems to be the eating we do without realizing it. We eat because its “time” to eat, not because we are hungry. We eat a bunch of food at parties, and, since its all little snacks, we don’t realize just how much we ate when the party is over. We eat more when we are eating with friends than when we are eating alone. We eat more if we eat dinner while watching tv, or if we eat breakfast while reading the newspaper, than if we ate at the kitchen table, with no distractions.
Wansink uses his years of studies and experiments to help the reader find ways to lose weight without realizing it. Did you know you burn more calories if you put ice in your drink than if you drink it without ice? Did you know that if a food has more variety to it (such as the many different colors that M&Ms have in a package), we will eat more of them than we would if they were all one color? Most people don’t know these kinds of things. But, even if they do, they don’t remember them when they are actually eating food.
The way to lose weight fairly painlessly seems to be two things. One is to be aware of all the little tricks out there that are influencing you to eat when you aren’t hungry. The other is to make sure that you change your eating habits without doing something that will make you feel deprived.
There are tons of facts in this book, complete with detailed descriptions of the studies that were done. It’s an interesting read, even for people who aren’t looking for a diet right now.
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