Small Changes in Eating Habits Can Make a Big Difference

Small Changes in Eating Habits Can Make a Big Difference

I’m KayDee Gilkey with today’s Northwest Farm and Ranch Report.
Mindless eating can be a downfall for many of us. Cornell University had a National Mindless Eating Challenge and the study reinforced the idea that small simple steps can make a difference in promoting weight loss.

Nutritionist Dr. Brian Wansink of Cornell University provides some examples of how making small changes in personal eating habits can help facilitate weight loss.

Wansink: “It’s not choosing a salad over soup or it’s not over choosing that dry chicken breast over the steak that you want. But it ends up being setting up your immediate area so you don’t have to think about things but you naturally eat better. For instance, moving the candy dish six feet away from a person’s desk, reduces how much candy they eat in a day by a little bit over 125 calories a day. Which over the course of a year is about nine pounds they would not otherwise gain by simply moving the candy dish. That ends up being the solution to a lot of things. Not will power for most people, not eating the low-fat cracker instead of the cookie they want for most people. It is just setting up their immediate environment and routine so that they naturally do things that are a little bit better and don’t they have to think about it.”

Other tips revealed in the study were: eat something hot in the first hour after waking, clean off kitchen counters of anything other than healthy food, eat every three to four hours and put down your fork between bites.

To learn more about the National Mindless Eating Challenge go to mindlesseating.org.