Mindless Eating

I finally cracked open the book that has been sitting on the table next to my chair since the first week of August... Mindless Eating by Brian Wansink. I am on chapter 8, about half way through... what are my thoughts so far? Well, so far it has been interesting. Many of the things he talks about and suggests in the book follow along very closely with what we have learned as bandsters. I'm not sure that this book is going to change much of what I am doing, but it does have some good pointers in it. I'll share what I have learned so far (and some of what I already knew). In random fashion and by bullets (Maria-style)

• When you buy things in large quantities you eat more of it
• Larger dishes (plates, bowls and even glasses) cause you to eat more than needed
• A larger variety of items in your pantry (or on your plate) will cause you to eat more than needed
• Most Americans don't stop eating when they are "satisfied" they eat until they are "full"
• when eating in a group, the second person to start eating sets the pace for the whole group, try to be the last one to begin eating
• if you are eating alone you are likely to over eat and if you eat with others you are likely to overeat... it just depends on you.  
• If you really really like what you are eating you are likely to eat too much of it
• the reason Atkins and Atkins like diets work is because they limit the variety of foods eaten and pretty soon you get so sick of eating the same thing all the time you eat less! Oh, and lack of variety is also the main reason why these diets also fail at some point...
• if you think something will taste bad (protein shake for example) it probably will, if you think it is going to taste really good it will probably at least be "not that bad"
• skinny people are really bad at "eye balling" amounts and estimating calories, but us fatties are even worse at it!
• we CAN retrain ourselves, but our society is working against us with the way they package, market and distribute what we eat (the "bad" things are cheap and easy to access, the "good" things are more expensive and take more preparation, of course we gravitate to the tasty, cheeeep, easy stuff)
• we put moral values on our food choices (good vs. bad) this perpetuates many of the issues that people have with food

That is about all I can remember right now, I'll post more after I finish it. 

I will be glad to send this book off to the next person who is interested in reading it as soon as I am done with it- I guess I'll probably just bring it to Chicago and put it up for grabs with all of the sisterhood clothes that I am bringing... oh, that reminds me-don't forget to bring your sisterhood clothes too! Only 17 days- can.not.wait.

WOOOOOOO!