The Little Things

I have been thinking about food in extreme ways lately. Between the holidays and the memoir I just read about anorexia and bulimia (more on that next week) I am in a bit of an all or nothing mindset. I am feeling overwhelmed by what I have left to accomplish.

Then I saw this article on Yahoo yesterday. While the 7 Bad Habits listed are all things I am aware of, it was refreshing to know that changing your lifestyle does not have to be quite so drastic, that the little things matter too.

I highly recommend reading the whole piece, but here are the bad habit highlights:

1. Putting Serving Dishes on the Table: People who leave the serving dishes on the counter or stove eat less. It takes you longer to commit to a second serving and you either start to feel full or can talk yourself out of getting seconds. This is totally true for me, if the dish is on the table I will pick at it until I am stuffed.

2. Too Little or Too Much Sleep: There is a fine line,t he article seems to lean towards 6 -7 hours a night. I strive for 7 - 8 and my goal is to be as consistent as possible (also difficult around this festive time).

3. Not Multitasking Wile Watching TV: I liked this as it did not say stop watching TV (it did recommend cutting back), the article suggested doing something while watching TV to burn calories. Cleaning, knitting, folding laundry, etc.

4. Drinking Soda: I think we have all heard the evils of soda over and over. In a calendar year I probably have 3 or 4 full calorie sodas, mostly ginger ale on planes (it's a comfort thing). I do drink an awful lot of diet soda and try to cut back.

5. Taking Big Bites: The Dutch (makers of the delicious Stroopwaffle) have determined that we are big bite hogs and if we took smaller bites and chewed longer we would be full faster and enjoy our food more. Hard to argue with logic.

6. Not Eating Enough Fat: Low fat diets don't work. I hope the mainstream eating public has figured this out yet. Fat is flavor and it is also satisfying. Eating healthy fats (olive oil, nuts, avocado, etc. ) makes you full faster and is processed by your body in a much more natural way than overloading on carbs (your body needs those too, so please don't try to subsist on bacon).

7. Not Getting the Best Advice: There is no lack of nutritional information out there. If you are confused by what you are eating or why you are not losing weight, reach out to the interwebs for good advice (try real experts, not me).

I guess it is refreshing to know that there are simple changes I can make to improve my health. At the same time it is easy to second guess everything I do. It is nearly impossible to not be food obsessed all the time.