How to Not Eat Too Much

“Too much” is actually a relative term…. too much for what? Or too much for whom??

The point of this article is to teach you how to eat less food than is the amount that will cause you to gain weight. It’s actually a relatively simple concept, but due to our busy lives and the social nature of our meals we tend to make this extremely difficult. The reason that this concept is easy is that our body actually has a mechanism that sends signals to our brain to let us know when we are full. This signal happens to come when we have eaten enough to sustain our weight. The problem is that we don’t listen.

The problem is multiplied when we overeat a few times in a row, which causes us to expand our stomach and therefore not get the “full signal” soon enough.

When is the last time you went out to a meal to an amazing restaurant and just kept eating because it was sooooo good? Don’t worry, you’re allowed to do this once in a while. See “What to Do If You Have Cheated”

The key here is ONCE IN A WHILE. This doesn’t mean every other day, but instead once every couple of weeks at the most. You can still go out to eat, just don’t OVEReat.

The rest of the time you need to train your body to eat as much as it needs to maintain your weight along with a small margin of error. This will be more if you are active and less if you sit all day. Trust me, this method is a LOT less tedious than counting calories and works well for a busy lifestyle. Luckily, humans are creatures of habit and will adapt to anything if you train yourself correctly. This makes things even easier.

Keep in mind that this article is for those of you that are not necessarily trying to lose, but instead to maintain. If you are trying to lose through this “intuitive” eating, see this.

Put the following rules in practice for two weeks, and I guarantee it will get easier and come more naturally the third week:

1. I know the most important rule usually comes last, but I’m putting it first. This is to make sure that you PRACTICE IT FIRST:  Every single time that you are putting food into your mouth BE CONSCIOUS OF IT. What are you eating right now? How much have you eaten? Are you hungry? Is it normal that you have eaten one large hamburger and you’re still hungry?? THINK about these things. It will cause you to notice when you have had enough.
2. If you have eaten too much for your previous meal, the next 2 meals will suck. The amount of food you need to eat for your next 2 meals should not be enough to make you full. This is because you need to shrink your stomach back to normal size. After these 2 meals resume as normal.
3. Food takes 20 minutes to hit your stomach. EAT SLOWER. Once again, if you have eaten one hamburger and you are still hungry, WAIT.
4. This is an oldie but a goodie… DON’T eat our of boredom or sadness or any other kind of emotion. I’m not going to tell you how to replace your boredom or sadness, just don’t do it. There are 5 million other ways to keep yourself occupied. How about start a blog?? Or maybe, get in touch with your sexuality (if you know what I mean)?
5. DON’T think it’s ok to eat 5 lbs of spinach. It’s true that there are barely any calories in spinach so you won’t get fat, but it will expand your stomach. So the next time you eat a meal of non-spinach you will need to fill up the same amount of space in your stomach that 5 lbs of spinach takes.
6. Learn how to leave food on your plate when you are full. This is extremely important especially at restaurants. Again, BE CONSCIOUS of how you feel when you are eating and stop eating when you are full. Put a napkin on your food if you need to in order to make you stop.
7. Be prepared for the fact that if you have a couple of drinks it will be extremely difficult to stop eating something delicious. All this conscious eating mumbo jumbo sounds great before alcohol, but be prepared that after drinks you WILL change your mind. Your full meter WILL be severely turned down if not turned off completely. Handle this is you wish, just BE PREPARED and PLAN ACCORDINGLY.

Remember, the key to not gaining weight is to make these tips a practice in your daily lifestyle. You shouldn’t be scared of vacation because it’s an eating/drinking fest, and you shouldn’t avoid dinner out. Instead, you need to learn how to handle these occasions properly. If you do, trust me, you will feel like a million bucks.