4 Tricks to Eating Less

Forget diets, use these easy tips to help you eat less. The following tips will help you eat less sweets and eat less at each meal.

1) Pre-measure your snack to help you eat less. Instead of taking the whole bag of chips or package of cookies with you to the living room or other room of the house leave the package in the kitchen. Take a small amount with you, to get more to munch on you will have to get up and retrieve the package. If your anything like me, once you are snuggled in warm under your blanket it will be more work to go get more to munch on than to stay warm and cozy. This one habit alone has helped me eat less on a regular basis.

2) Ignore the low-fat or sugar-free claims to help you eat less. I think we are all guilty of having that extra cookie, because "after all it's low-fat so one more won't hurt.' Come on admit it, you know you've done it! Many of us equate low-fat or sugar-free with low calories, however this is not always the case. Studies have shown that women who buy low-fat or sugar-free snacks actually eat 49% more of these snacks per sitting. This extra 49% averages out to 89 extra calories per sitting.

3) Fill your plate, but use a smaller plateto help you eat less. When serving dinner chose a smaller plate and fill it. The smaller plate helps you eat less by serving yourself smaller portions. How many times have you felt full, but saw a few more bites on your plate? Many of us will chose to eat the last few bites rather than waste the food. By serving yourself a smaller portion to begin with you will not have to chose between waste or waist and you will naturally eat less.

4) Hide your sweets to help you eat less. Find the most inconvenient hiding place in the house and hide your sweets there. The more difficult it is to get at your sweets the less likely you will be to make the effort to dig the sweets out. I have a friend who lives in a small apartment so her home office is in the corner of her kitchen. In the corner is a small two drawer filing cabinet that locks. The bottom drawer of this filing cabinet contains only one item a small bowl. This bowl contains all of snacks in her house. The snacks can only be obtained by unlocking the drawer and opening the airtight container. So where is the key? The key is kept in the ashtray of her car! To unlock the drawer she has to walk down three flights of stairs to her car and retrieve the key. Needless to say she snacks very little and eats less.