Eat A Good Lunch To Maintain Weight

HEALTHY EATERS HAVE A GOOD LUNCH

How and where you eat is important, too: which means at a table, not at your desk, in front of a TV or while walking.

It’s become fashionable to say you’re too busy for a lunch break, but if you sit down and eat something mindfully — paying attention to the fact you’re eating — your brain will register ‘I’ve eaten’ and you won’t be so prone to cravings and hunger pangs later.

Last year, I led a study published in the Journal of Health Psychology where we gave 60 women a cereal bar to eat. One group had it while watching TV, the second while walking and the third talked to a friend while eating.

They were then offered snacks including chocolate, carrot sticks and crisps. Those who had eaten while walking ate five times more chocolate.

Any distraction can disrupt the brain’s ability to process the fact you’re eating and its impact on your hunger. We don’t recognise food we’ve had and want more.

JUST BECAUSE NIGELLA DOES IT ...

The modern world has become obsessed with food, in the form of controlling what we eat and cutting out food groups such as sugar or gluten or devouring cookery TV shows and books and needing to make every meal exciting. I’m afraid neither of these is healthy eating.

Celebrity chef-style meals tend to be high in butter, salt and fat. They also make food preparation seem complicated, so people feel intimidated by cooking from scratch and give up and buy ready meals and oven chips.

I wish there was a TV show that showed how to make pasta with stir-in pesto and salad — a typical dinner in my house. The truth is that most people probably have only a handful of recipes in their repertoire, such as spaghetti bolognese and shepherd’s pie, and there’s nothing wrong with that.

Meanwhile, demonising certain foods, whether it’s carbs or wheat or sugar, also sets up an unhealthy preoccupation. Ultimately, it often makes these foods more alluring — and irresistible at moments of weakness.

Source: dailymail.co.uk/health/article-3448464/Ten-mind-tricks-make-healthier-eater.html#ixzz4Czbsn1v2