Use Your Imagination

The opposite of mindless eating:

[Research indicates that] indulging thoughts of eating a particular food may help us to eat less of the real thing.

The finding could mean a rethink of weight management and drug treatment programmes, because these usually emphasise avoidance of thoughts of the desired item, rather than encouragement of them. "We believe this is the first research to show the imagination can decrease the attraction of any initially attractive stimulus," says Joachim Vosgerau at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, part of the team that conducted the research.

"When you quit smoking you constantly get those urges, you're trying to suppress the thoughts," says Vosgerau. "According to our theory, you should do the opposite and imagine doing it, drag by drag."

I'm not sold. I think about eating macadamia nuts all day, and I'm still stuffing m

Excuse me. I need to go eat some mac nuts.

(Source: New Scientist)

Watch What You Eat

It helps to keep an eye -- literally -- on the size of your portions:

Researchers in Berlin set up a study where participants would eat in the dark, allowing the researchers to alter portion sizes without the participants knowing. In darkness, the participants—visually unaware of whether they had been given the regular or super-sized portions—ate all of the food with little change in feelings of fullness between those with the large or small portions. In contrast, those who were fed the same portions in a lit area reported feeling fuller sooner and ate less. They were able to gauge how full they should feel based on the size of the portion in front of them.

(Source: Lifehacker)

Dinner Plates for Dummies

Designers Rui Pereira and Hafsteinn Juliusson have created plates that remind diners of how to load up with nutritious foods.

Too bad they didn't make a Paleo/Primal version.

(Source: Daque Design via Neatorama)