How to Eat Less

Do you finish all of the food on your plate or are you able to stop eating even if there is still food left?  Chances are, many people will not stop eating until all the food is gone no matter how much is on the plate.  This action is logical in some cases.  Many people who grew up during the depression did not know when they would receive their next meal therefore they would eat all the food on their plate.  Other people are members of the Clean Plate Club because as children, their parents spoke of the starving people in other countries.  Luckily, food scarcity is less of a problem these day and restaurants will often serve more food than the average person should eat in a typical sitting.  So why do you still finish all the food even if you know when the next meal is coming from and how do you limit your eating to prevent weight gain?

The answer may lie in a behavioral bias called the Endowment Effect which causes people to place a higher value on things that they posses.  The Endowment Effect states that people will demand more for an object that own than they are willing to pay for that same object.  In other words, if I gave you a mug as a present, you would only be willing to sell that mug for a higher price than you would be willing to buy it for.

In the case of eating, it may be, that people are unwilling to give up the food on their plate because they feel it is theirs even when they know that they should not eat all of the food.

To break this cycle, you need to be willing to give up some food on your plate.  Of course it would be impolite to take food off of your plate and put it someplace else on the table.  However the following plate design would serve a similar purpose.

To eat less, just push some food on your plate into the "For Later" section.

At some point in your meal, simply push some food into the portion of the plate that says “For Later”.  The phrase can be interpreted different ways.  For some people, it could mean that they want to bring the extra food home in a doggy bag for a snack at home.  For others it could mean that the food they do not eat today does not increase their weight later.  Another way to view it is to give your body a chance to digest the food that you are currently eating before eating more.  Often times, the feeling of satiation or fullness takes a while to kick-in after a meal.  Pausing during the meal gives your body time to register the food you have eaten and you will find that you are really not that hungry for the remaining portion.  Either way, by pushing the food away from you, you are overcoming the Endowment Effect thereby gaining control over how much you eat.

The amount of food that you push away is not important.  In the beginning, it feels very strange, but with time, it becomes second nature.  When using this technique, you will find that you leave the table with a feeling of lightness rather than heaviness.  See a related post on ways to make you feel better after eating: http://latentvalue.blogspot.com/2010/11/how-restaurants-can-increase-value-of.html.

By designating a portion of the plate for later, people would more comfortable not eating all of the food on their plate creating a healthier balance between caloric intake and caloric needs.

Note:  There can also be other variations on what is written on the plate.  You could show a cute monsters mouth or say something like “Feed your Willpower”.