7 Tips to Stop Mindless Eating

Yahoo Health

This advice will help you stop mindlessly chowing down. (Photo: Stocksy/Pete Bernik)

As we all know, mindless eating can be a serious struggle, especially when we are overwhelmed by everything else going on in our lives. Today, I want to show you seven ways to combat this issue and hopefully get a little healthier along the way.

Many people were very intrigued by my interview with behavioral scientist Brian Wansink and his ideas. He studies eating behavior and consumer habits, and has a book that just came out: Slim By Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life.

I asked him for some of his top tips, and he gave me these excellent suggestions to “Help your kitchen make you slim.”

  1. Serve vegetables first. (This combines the Strategy of Inconvenience, because you can’t just reach out to take more food, and the Strategy of Monitoring, because you can keep track better of how much you’re eating.)

  2. Serve the main dish from the stove or counter, so that to get seconds, you have to stand up and go get more.

  3. Use dinner plates that are 9 to 10 inches wide. We eat less when we use a smaller plate, but American plate sizes have been steadily growing.

  4. Sit at a table, with the TV off. People eat more, without noticing, if they’re watching TV. And if you have to sit at a table to eat, you’ve made it harder to have impulsive snacks.

  5. Keep two or fewer cans of sugary drinks in your fridge.

  6. Keep your kitchen counters organized, not messy. (I was interested to see this one — it confirms my argument about the Strategy of Foundation and the importance of “uncluttering.”)

  7. Keep snack foods in one inconvenient cupboard. (Again, the Strategy of Inconvenience.)

By following these guidelines, you’ll be on your way to a happier, healthier lifestyle in no time. What would be your best tips? I remind myself of one of my Secrets of Adulthood for Habits: It’s easier to change my surroundings than myself. It’s easier to put cookies on a high shelf than to boost my willpower.

I talk about all of these tips in Better Than Before, my book about habit change (the most fascinating subject in the world).

Agree, disagree? What have I missed?

Also … do you love great quotations? Sign up for the “Moment of Happiness,” a free daily email with a quotation about habits or happiness. Or if you’re always looking for a good book to read, sign up for my monthly book club.

Gretchen Rubin is the author of the blockbuster New York Times bestsellers, Better Than Before, The Happiness Project, and Happier at Home. On her weekly podcast Happier with Gretchen Rubin, she discusses good habits and happiness with her sister Elizabeth Craft. She writes about happiness and habit-formation at gretchenrubin.com. Follow her  on Twitter, @gretchenrubin, or on Facebook, facebook.com/GretchenRubin.