Mindless eating - Watch what you eat - Mindful eating for dieting

One of the biggest reasons of weight gain is mindless eating. These is the food we eat without realizing that these are just extra calories going down the belly. It happens to everyone, remember last time when you sat with your friends and said "I am too full", "but wait" another friend says, "You have to taste this apple pie I made", well then we even eat those.

Food is supposed to be enjoyed, relished and at the same time it is important to keep in mind how many calories are being consumed. When we are with friends, most of our attention is focussed on the topic of discussion. We usually realize that we have overeaten is when our stomach virtually starts to say "I can take no more".

A good way to prevent mindless eating when you are with friends is to eat very slowly. If you cannot avoid eating a high calorie dish, simply take a small portion of it. Take larger portions of salads, greens or the food which is less fattening. Watchout for things like ranch, cheese and other items which may be just add-ons high calorie addons to your main dish, take smaller portion of those also. To avoid mindless eating eat slowly and take smaller scoops of every bite if you think the party is going to go on for a long time. Often wine, beer or other forms of alcohol will make us do the mindless eating. Alcohol's like beer may be quite fattening themselves.

Lunch/Dinner Buffets are also perfect examples where most of us tend to do mindless eating. Personally I like to enjoy very tiny portion of each item and then go back and take more of what I like. Often we tend to fill our plate with food and then eat it anyway as there is often a guilt that the food will be wasted even if we do not necessarily like the food. Eat fruits and salads to balance out the other high calorie food. Many people over eat in buffets just because they feel we need to get the most out of the money that we paid for.

Another great example of mindless eating are the fast foods. If you think eating a few small one dollar burgers will be the same as eating one bigger five dollar burger, then you may be often wrong. Request your sandwich with "No-Cheese" and "No-Dressing" or "Light dressing/mayonnaise". If possible take "Diet-soda" instead
of the regular one.

Eating while watching TV or a movie is also a bad place to eat. We hardly concenterate on the food and just do our mindless eating. You will probably eat all those
pop-corns, even loaded with butter.

Many low calorie foods are just deception. For example low calorie ice creams may have 30% less fat than the regular but we tend to take twice the quantity we would have taken otherwise. Somewhere in our mindless eating also happens because of all the hype and advertising going around us. Many places and food chains offer bigger quantities for low prices. Learn to say "NO" to yourself. Always read the nutrition labels and be aware of what you are eating. Switch from mindless eating to mindful eating.

If the minimum serving size in a restaurant is more than you would like to have, learn to make it "to-go" or just let it go. Mindful eating can help you cut hundreds of calories every day. Mindless eating also includes eating candies, chocolates and other goodies which we do not even consider having anything significant.

I use to hate fruits for 25 years of my life. I still do not really love them but have started to like them. Personally I try to eat 2-3 fruits a day like apple, banana and orange. Even if this may sound foolish, I do eat a fruit an hour before I leave home for a dinner party.

Article Source: http://www.weightism.org