Tricks of the Trade

Losing weight and keeping the pounds of permanently involves a whole set of behavioral and attitudinal changes that amount to a fundamental change in one's life.  It helps to know the tricks of the losing weight trade, some of those tricks are obvious such as stay away from refined sugar as much as humanly possible.  Others are less obvious and there are ones that are even counter-intuitive.  Although nuts are high in calories, for example, there is now research (see here) that suggests that eating nuts contributes to weight loss.

A recent posting entitled, "6 Weird Ways Your Environment Affects How Much You Eat," provides another layer of insights and hints helpful to those who want to lose weight.  When we go to an all-you-can-eat buffet, thus, we do best by starting out by eating the healthiest foods in the buffet rather than the first ones we come across.  Doing so, reduces our total intake of calories.  Be aware of how our environment influences eating is also helpful.  Eating in a room with loud music and bright lights, for example, encourages us to eat more.  When eating in a restaurant, we do better if we don't let what others order influence our order, which is the tendency apparently.  Weirdest of all, evidently the shape and even the color of the wine glass we pour our wine into actually influences how much wine we consume.  Who woulda thunk!  Even how we place foods in the fridge influences what we take out to eat, which is less obvious but runs along the same lines as not leaving a lot of high-calorie snacking food laying conveniently around.

Losing weight is partly a motivational issue and regular exercise is important, but it is also a matter of managing our eating habits.  Tricks of the trade like these are a help!