Diet Saboteurs: What Can You Do to Maintain Self Control?

You set the alarm to be sure you’re up on time, check the weather report to know if you’ll need and umbrella and read your messages before you leave the house to see if your schedule has changed, but you can never really know what is going to happen next. Your day simply is not completely under your own control, no matter how well you plan.

But if you’re trying to eat sensibly and have taken the basic steps to anticipate the what-when-where-and-how much of your meals and snacks, there are some things you can do to circumvent the biggest booby traps that may undermine your good nutrition. 

Noise control:  Researchers at Penn State University who tested 34 women eating in a room with loud background noise found that those who weren’t able to shut out the noise later consumed twice as many calories as those who did shut it out. Bars, campus cafeterias, and most chain restaurants are notoriously noisy places and ones frequented by college women.. It is not clear how hearing loud noise while eating interferes with satiety. It is hypothesized that the noise creates tension or frustration in the diner, which prevents her registering what she is eating.

Strategy: If you can’t turn down the back ground volume, then use earplugs to muffle the sound or wear your iPod so you can tune into something more mellow.  

Screen time control: Children and adults alike will eat more when looking at an active television or computer screen. The more entertaining the TV program or computer activity is, the more you’re likely to eat. This could be blamed on the fact the screen is a distraction from the act of eating, so once you start munching, you don’t know when to stop, but there’s more to it than that. Screen time is also sedentary time, and depending on how long you remained fixed on the screen, you’re not burning many calories. And lastly, all television viewing and some at the computer contain food and beverage advertisements that can prompt you to get something to eat even if you weren’t intending to.

Strategy: Your best hope here is to make a hard and fast rule that you will not eat while watching TV or working at the computer --- you can throw in the movies, too, if you really want to help yourself. Instead, give yourself permission to turn off the screen or leave the room to get something to eat. You’ll be surprised how unappetizing cold egg rolls taste when you’re standing alone in the kitchen with the leftovers in hand or how much time you’ll feel you’re wasting by shutting down the computer to eat that second bag of 100 calorie cookies. 

Speed control: The faster you eat, as in shove the food in your mouth and swallow it while reloading the fork, the more calories you’re likely to take in by the end of the day. There are two parts to this phenomenon. First, if there is a lot of food to choose from, the faster you eat, the greater your chances of taking more, or a second helping, just so you can continue eating along with everyone else. Ever been the one to snag a third slice of pizza when three people are sharing a pie cut into eighths? Second, those who eat more slowly get to experience a sense of satiety that keeps them from eating again for a longer period of time following a meal. One study found that women who took 29 minutes to eat lunch consumed 67 fewer calories and felt more satisfied than when they took only nine minutes to eat.

Strategy: Some ways to slow yourself down when eating is to be sure you’re the last person to pick up your fork at the start of a meal and the last to put yours down, or eat with your non-dominant hand, or be sure to put your food or utensil down after every bite and don’t pick it up again until you finish chewing what’s in your mouth. 
 

Healthy claims control: The “American obesity paradox” has to do with the fact people in this country have continued to get fatter at the same time that healthier foods have become more available and more popular. A study in the Journal of Consumer Research explains this is because people feel more entitled to enjoy an indulgence when they are eating a “healthier” food, as if the “good” choice cancels out the “bad.”

An example of this is when you order the big chocolate chip cookie for dessert because you’re getting one of the low-calorie sandwiches at a Subway restaurant. For some consumers, there is a “health halo” that can be transferred to everything on the menu in restaurants that may be known for some very specific healthy choices. In either case, it is essential to remember that all of the calories we eat are equivalent, no matter how nutritious the food is.

Strategy: Skip the mind games and math magic. Calories count no matter where your get them, so keep track of everything you eat and add up the calories as you go through the day to see if you’re entitled to that luscious dessert or second glass of wine. 

Robyn Flipse, MS, RD

Author, Fighting the Freshman Fifteen

Available at www.FreshmanFifteenBook.com  

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Editor's Note: Robyn would like to know: How do you stick to your fitness and healthy eating goals on weekends and holidays?

Email us at feedback@universitychic.com with the subject line "Healthy Eating." The responses received will inform next month's Health and Nutrition column.

And if you have your own health-related question for Robyn, send her your query at our Ask the Experts form.

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