How to feast without getting fat

The holidays are here. Endless celebrating, visiting, snacks and candy. It’s all very hard to refuse — and so we end up eating more and feeling fat. Hence all the diet and exercise resolutions come the New Year.

But, in fact, there’s no need to put on weight, despite all the big holiday meals. You just need to take advantage of a few psychological tricks that will help your subconscious mind reduce your calorie intake without any willpower or dieting.

These tricks exploit the fact that your weight is not much affected by a single meal. Instead, it is all about your long-term calorie consumption.

So you can still enjoy big meals with your friends and end up at the right weight. Provided you balance out those calories long term.

That is impossible if you are just relying on willpower, of course! So, instead, make a few changes that will alter your subconscious eating decisions, without having to think about your diet at all.

Step one: use smaller plates. That works because your subconscious sees a piece of food on a large plate as a small portion and so you add more.

But put the same piece of food on a smaller plate and your subconscious says stop sooner, even though the amount is the same.

That may sound crazy, but it really works. Research shows that changing from 12-inch to 10-inch plates reduces long-term calorie intake by 22 per cent — the equivalent of around 10kg a year.

Step two: choose plates whose colour contrasts with your food. Because when the colour of your plate matches the colour of the food, you will pile almost 30 per cent more on your plate.

Whereas with a high contrast between your plate and food colours, your subconscious again says stop sooner. So forget willpower. Change your plate’s size and colour to reduce your portions.

And eat a little slower because it takes a while for your stomach to signal you are full. So eating quickly means you are more likely to go back for more. Instead, talk and laugh lots, and make every meal a social occasion.

Want to do more?

Simply skip a meal or two. This isn’t nearly as difficult as it sounds, if you begin after your usual breakfast and a late lunch. For the rest of the day, drink as much water as you want but no food. Keep busy, go to sleep as usual, and eat nothing the next morning.

Have an early lunch, and the rest of the day as normal — and you’ve missed a couple of meals! Painlessly, because you were sleeping most of the time and had two normal meals both days. Doing that a couple of times a month will make a big difference.

So, enjoy your food this holiday. Use psychology to control your portions, and skip a few meals to compensate for those big feasts. Keep up that strategy all year, and you’ll soon be as slim as you like.

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