Eating tiny bites of food is a trick of weight maintenance

I ate off a tiny plate last night at a Japanese restaurant.  The chicken stir-fry came with seven different kinds of vegetables, chicken was white meat, no breading or skin, and each serving included about a tablespoon of rice, and a sprinkling of soy sauce.  Yum!

I have been practicing the tiny plate, tiny bites trick for years.  Take a tiny plate at a salad bar.  Use a tiny plate at a buffet, or party.  It looks like a lot of food! It makes me eat less, but feel satisfied.  

I also appreciate tiny cookies, mini-cupcakes and miniature chocolate bars. Not everyone wants a gigantic cookie or giant chocolate bar, or buy-one-get-one-free candy bar sale, or four Dolly Madison cakes for the price of three, etc. 

Sonja by the fountain at the Sheraton in Tucson, Arizona, this past year

I also take tiny bites of food during meals.  Smaller bites are easier to chew, and chewing is the only part of digestion we actually have control over.  It also looks nicer to those dining with you. 

It all goes back to enjoying food, savoring all bites (See: 5 Ways to Savor the Flavor of Food ) These kinds of tricks have helped me maintain a 50-pound weight loss for over 10 years.

Pizza must be savored!

Last weekend, my husband and I passed a woman walking down the sidewalk, holding a sandwich in her right hand.  She kept taking bites of it and I wanted to say “Stop! You’re not savoring!”

Next, next two ladies walked towards us holding paper plates with slices of pizza, eating as they walked.  Oh no!  The tragedy! Pizza is a treat, and must be eaten while sitting down, preferably in small bites, and chewed slowly.

Living Thin means ingesting only the amount of calories one needs in a day.  That amount is limited, so I like to enjoy each and every bite I put in my mouth.  Here are a few rules to help you enjoy food, and not overeat:

1)  Slow down.  Enjoy every bite.  Chew food slowly.  Food can only be tasted while it’s in the mouth. After it goes down into the stomach, the pleasure of eating is over.

2) Sit down and eat.  Make eating an event.  Use plates and silverware.  Cut food up into little bites; it feels like you get to eat more.

3)  No walking and eating.  Our bodies need to send oxygen to muscles for walking, not digesting.  It’s harder to chew and eat while walking — much harder to savor.   Wait until there’s more time to eat.

Sonja at Trail Dust Town in Tucson, after savoring lunch at the Dakota Cafe

5)  No mindless eating in front of the TV.  It’s easy to eat an entire bag of chips or cookies and wonder where they all went — which could be an entire day’s allotment of calories.  Either bring one portion to eat, then stop, or quit this habit altogether.

Read:  Why French Women Don’t Get Fat; 10 Tips; Find out what author Mireille Guiliano has to say about savoring food, and how French women eat whatever they want – and stay thin.

Eat a variety of colors!

Eat your way through a rainbow of fruits and vegetables every day; not only will it help keep you thin for life, since they are lower in calories, but these foods are chock full of antioxidants to keep you healthy and youthful.

Red:

Red foods are full of lycopene, which reduce risk of several types of cancers.  Foods in this group include: Red apples, beets, red cabbage, cherries, cranberries, pink grapefruit, red grapes, red peppers, pomegranates, radishes, raspberries, strawberries, tomatoes and watermelon.

These carotenoid-rich foods help reduce risk of cancer, heart disease, and improve immune system function; people who eat these types of foods are less likely to have eye disorders and blindness associated with age.  Foods in this group include: Yellow apples, apricots, butternut squash, cantaloupe, carrots, grapefruit, lemons, mangoes, nectarines, oranges, papayas, peaches, pears, yellow peppers, persimmons, pineapple, pumpkin, rutabagas, yellow summer or winter squash, sweet corn, sweet potatoes, tangerines and yellow tomatoes.

A never-ending selection of colors to choose from!

Paul and Sonja on Waikiki Beach, August 2011

Researchers at SUNY Upstate Medical Center say if we triple our intake of these age-defying antioxidants, we can add at least four healthy years to our lives.  I think it’s amazing that there are so many different colors of fruits and vegetables to choose from.  How entertaining to color-code our food!  It keeps things simple.  Just eat a variety of colors, and you don’t  have to know the names of everything inside, plus, fruits and vegetables will help keep you healthy, young — and thin.