A recent study examined how the number of times you chew your food relates to satisfying your hunger. What they found was intriguing. Forty chews was the magic number.

When people in the study ate a small serving of almonds, 40 chews satisfied hunger better than 10. And even when they looked at people taking 25 chews with almonds, it wasn’t as effective. On top of the benefit of feeling full, the magic number of 40 chews also made the subjects feel full longer than the lower counts.

You are better off chewing almonds or any nuts slowly anyway, because they are calorie dense. To avoid too many calories, consider some lower-calorie snack alternatives, particularly raw vegetables.

The biggest challenge I face with managing weight is feeling full while eating light healthy food. Realage.com gives 10 handy tips to resolve hunger, and satisfy your appetite while staying healthy, some of these include:

• Eat protein for breakfast
• Store tempting foods out of reach, forcing you to literally take extra steps to attain them
• Get 8 hours of sleep
• Ask the waiter to serve half your meal, and box the rest
• Sit down and use utensils when snacking, you’ll consume fewer calories
• Start lunch with a vegetable soup and you’ll reduce overall calories by 20% for that meal

(via: Real Age)

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Chew Food More, Lose Weight

The chart plots out the relationship between the amount of time people take in the day to eat and their BMI (Body Mass Index). As can be expected, those countries that eat their food more quickly tend to be more obese. And as someone commented at psfk.com, those populations above the trend line tend to eat large land-based mammals (beef, pork, etc.) as their main protein source, and those under the trend line tend to eat mostly fish.

(Chart via Economix blog at the New York Times.)

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Time Spent Eating Helps Determine Weight

“Viewers of the exercise messages ate significantly more (than their peers, who viewed other types of messages),” said psychology professor Dolores Albarracín, who led the research. “They ate one-third more when exposed to the exercise ads.”

Phrases such as “join a gym” or “take a walk” had the averse effects on people in the study.

These phrases were juxtaposed to opposing words like “make friends” or “be in a group.” Researchers found that these phrases didn’t have the same effect.

This study further builds upon previous research by Albarracín that suggests fitness messaging can have unintended side effects, some negative.

(via: Science Daily)

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Fitness Marketing Makes People Eat More, Study Says

This is so good.

I love this restaurant; leftovers for lunch is such a treat.

There’s not really enough here to save. It would be a shame to waste any of this.

Next time I’ll divide it into three portions instead of two.

I just won’t eat as much for dinner. I’m sure I won’t get hungry as quickly if I finish this.

At least I’m not having soda with lunch this time.

Why am I doing this?

Now I feel too full. I’m tired and won’t get enough work done.

I think you can quickly identify what thought(s) led to the choice to join the clean plate club, despite feeling full. You can probably also quickly identify the thought(s) that lead to guilt. It is easier to identify when written in front of you, but your thoughts are in your head. You are likely not as skilled at identifying each one. The first step to solving any problem is recognizing where things go awry. To recognize these thoughts in yourself, you may need to start paying more attention to yourself. Eliminate all distractions while you eat, so that you are left with only your own thoughts. It may also be helpful to actually write down your thoughts to assist you in reviewing, analyzing, and disputing them later.

A more helpful thought pattern might go something like this:

That was so good, exactly what I wanted when I was hungry.

I love this restaurant; leftovers for lunch was a special treat.

There’s not really enough here to save.

It is better to waste the food in the trash then to waste the extra calories in my body.

Next time I’ll divide it into three portions instead of two.

I have a plan for dinner and I do not need to eat any extra right now.

I am already on the right path, drinking water instead of soda today.

I am having a great day controlling my eating and enjoying my food.

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Thinking Out of the Clean Plate Club

But the importance of breakfast is tied to how healthy the meal is.

Researchers analyzed data from a national health survey and found that people who ate lower-calorie foods for breakfast tended to have a higher-quality diet overall.

The findings, reported in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, support previous studies that found people who eat breakfast are less likely to be overweight. More specifically, people who reported eating foods low in “energy density” for breakfast, meaning low in calories as compared to the amount of food, were more likely to choose lower-calorie foods for the rest of the day than those who ate more caloric foods.

The findings are based on responses from more than 12,000 U.S. adults who took part in three federal health surveys between 1999 and 2004.

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Breakfast Eaters are Healthiest

“Honey, will you turn on the TV and order us a pizza?”

I bet those are words you would have never thought to put together. But now that a deal has been struck between TiVo and Domino’s Pizza, you may hear them soon. This comes from the press release that accompanied the announcement that you will be able to order pizza through your TiVo box:

“We are confident that teaming with TiVo on this novel, easy, and convenient way to order pizza right from the TV will be very well received by our customers,” says Rob Weisberg, vice president of precision and print marketing at Domino’s Pizza.

“This is the first step in the future of customer interactions with the brands they seek to engage with and buy from. This is the first time in history that the ‘on-demand’ generation will be able to fully experience couch commerce by ordering pizza directly through their television set.“

Strike one up for convenience. I’m not going to pretend this is altogether bad. But what’s next? A remote control fork programmed to feed you?

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TiVo and Domino’s Introduce a New TV Dinner

Scientists with The Scripps Research Institute say the antibody catalyst, GHR-11E11, increases the metabolic rate in fasting mice and curbed their eating even after the rodents went 24 hours without food.

I’m not sure if this is known to translate in human subjects, but since recent reports from the World Health Organization say about 1 billion people worldwide are overweight or obese, anything is worth a shot.

It’s not being touted as a be-all, end-all cure for obesity. It will still take the usual combination of things to lose weight: optimum nutrition, exercise, and psychological components.

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Antibody May Suppress Appetite