Try eating with your non-dominant hand. You can also use a utensil you’re not used to, like a small spoon or chopsticks. Eating more slowly will give you ample time to realize you’re full, so you’ll naturally eat less. Eating slower will also improve your digestion.
Ask your dentist about an appliance that’s designed to help you eat more slowly. You place the device, which is similar to a dental retainer, in the roof of mouth before you eat. It reduces the size of your oral cavity, forcing you to take smaller bites.
Wear Less (More Often)
Having awareness of your body will naturally make you want to eat smarter. One of the best ways to have body awareness is by seeing it—often. Ever notice how people naturally lose weight in the summer? We typically eat less when we’re hot, but seeing ourselves in swimwear everyday also helps. Wear skimpy clothes while eating at home, or better yet, eat naked.
Remove Your Food
When you go out to dinner, assess your fullness after you’ve eaten half of your entrée. If you don’t feel hungry, make a conscious decision to not finish your meal. You shouldn’t eat it just because it’s in front of you. Ask your server to take the food away immediately, or if you don’t want to waste it box it up so you can’t continue to pick at it.
Invest in the Better Dishes
Everyone’s heard about eating off smaller plates, but have you ever considered the color of your dishes? Out of all the colors in the spectrum, blue is known to be an appetite suppressant, mainly because blue food is a rare occurrence in nature. Try eating off of all blue dishes. You can even take it a step further by putting a blue light in your refrigerator, pantry, and dining area.
New research also shows that people eat less if there’s a higher contrast between the color of the food and the color of the plate. If you’re eating a light colored food like rice, you’ll likely eat less of it off of a dark-colored plate versus a white plate. The rice will stand out on a darker plate, making the portion seem larger.
Since the size and color of your dishes matter, it only makes sense that the shape does too. Research has shown that people feel like they’re getting a larger portion when eating and drinking out of a tall narrow glass or bowl versus a short fat one.
