Weight loss is the mercurial quest for many (and most) Americans. Tricks and fad diets abound to help people lose weight. And it seems as if everyone is waiting for the next trend. The problem with trends is that they come and go without any really staying power.
I am a complete advocate of lifestyle changes instead of dieting. Dieting can create a yo-yo effect on your body, with your weight bouncing up and down, which can reek havoc on your body, especially your metabolism.
Why do people try to diet? A lot of it is vanity and the desire to fit into smaller skinny jeans. However, maintaining a healthy weight has more benefits than just having a skinny midsection. It is better for your overall health and can even save you money. You will save money by not spending it on extra food and also by getting inexpensive health insurance. That’s right. Eating healthy can help you get cheaper health insurance and here is how. When you are healthier overall (good diet, healthy weight, healthy lifestyle) you will use health care less often, which in turn will save you a bundle. I even earned money from my inexpensive health insurance company just for being healthy. How is that for an incentive?
While it is difficult to instigate and maintain a full lifestyle change, there are some “tricks” that can help you lose weight or just stay healthy.
A new study came out from the local research university (and my alma mater, holla!) with just such a trick. It says that those who eat with bigger forks will eat less overall. The study says that when dining at a restaurant we have one goal: to eat. A bigger fork makes you visually think you are satisfying that need quicker, and therefore you will not eat as much. A smaller fork, which holds less food, makes you visually think you need to continue to eat to attain your goal. This could be a trick to help you eat less. But do not use this as your only weight loss tool. The study found that when they tried to recreate the study in the lab it was unsuccessful. The researchers attributed this anomaly to the fact that the researcher subconscious was not focusing on the need to eat, but to complete the assignment. So the subconscious was not quite tricked.
This made me think about the other types of tricks restaurants use for eating. I used to always think I had an internal temperature problem because I was always freezing when we would go out to eat. It turns out that is another trick restaurants use, but this is to actually make you order and eat more. People are more likely to eat more when it is colder, instead of when it is warm. In addition to keeping it cold because of crowds, this helps restaurant patrons to eat (and hopefully order) more.