PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT YOU EAT

Recently, at a major University researchers asked a group of people a elemenatry question: "How do you know when you’re through eating dinner?"

The answer might seem clear. Everyone pushes the plate away when they feel full, right? The answer is, no. The leanest people do, maybe. That, according to the researchers, but people who are overweight rely more on other clues what are known as "external cues." People packing a few (or many)extra pounds tend to stop eating at the time…

• They have made sure their plates are clean.
• Everyone in their dining group is finished eating.
• The entertainment on TV  they’re watching is over.

Sadly, these cues have nothing to do with how they feel physically. "People’s brains are often out of touch with their bodies," to quote C. Peter Herman, Ph.D., a University expert on appetite control. "And when eating becomes mindless, overeating becomes routine."

The key  in all of this appears to be a region of your brain called the left posterior amygdala, or LPA. This part monitors the amount of food in your stomach during a meal. Stuff your gut to a comfortable level, and the LPA tells your brain to drop the fork. Problem is, it delivers that information too slowly. "Many men consume calories faster than their bodies can say, ‘Stop!’" explains Herman. "So they look to external cues to guide their consumption."

The answer is this: Tune in to your stomach. Tune into your eating. for some this has shown to cut their caloric consumption by half. Some tricks to use to do just that:

• always sit for a meal no matter how small never stand to eat
• keep a food diary this is the best thing to keep from underestimating your caloric intake
• taste your food savor every bite besides being good for weight loss it makes the food so much better
• savoring your food should facilitate slowing down and vice versa make this conscious put the fork down take a mindful breathe
• be careful not to pick at food that you did not put on your plate when deciding how much to eat if you didn’t decide to eat it then don’t do it mindlessly because it is there
• avoid distractions when eating you can’t savor your food and watch a Seinfeld re-run or the Nightly news turn off the boob tube