Calories divided are easier to control
To help conquer a compulsion for high-calorie foods this holiday season, divide them into smaller portions.
That’s one way to control calories and help ward off unwanted pounds, according to a study by University of Pennsylvania researchers.
The study looked at consumption of three popular snack foods offered in individual servings: Tootsie Rolls, M&M;’s and soft pretzels. The team of researchers, led by Paul Rozin, a professor of psychology, tested the effect of providing smaller and larger portions of each treat to see how it changed the number of calories that participants ate.
Would participants, for example, eat more of the smaller portions and fewer of the larger ones?
In fact, no matter what size of treat offered -- a small Tootsie Roll or one four times larger, a whole pretzel or half a pretzel, one small scoop of M&M;’s or a large scoop -- the participants ate just one portion, even when they were encouraged to consume more. The end result: Those who were offered larger servings of treats ate more than those offered smaller portions.
The findings “suggest that people see food as [discrete] ‘units,’ ” says Andrew B. Geier, a doctoral student in experimental psychology and coauthor of the study, which will be published in the journal Psychological Science. “Whether you give them a 6-inch sub or a 9-inch sub, a small plate or a large plate of food, one small scoop of M&M;’s or one large scoop, these ‘units’ are governing intake control of food.”
Researchers call this “compulsion completion.” Or as Penn State research nutritionist Liane Roe puts it: “If your mind sees a food as an entire whole, somehow you have this drive to finish it.”
Capitalize on this phenomenon by cutting foods into smaller portions, Geier says, and you can cut calories without eliminating all of your favorite holiday foods. “It can really make a big difference in calories at the end of the day,” he says.
Here are some other ways to help you get through the holidays unburdened by added pounds:
* Downsize plates and serving utensils. When cafeterias and restaurants want customers to eat less food, they give them smaller plates. The same goes for serving utensils. In an ongoing study, Geier has replaced the large scooper at his university’s cafeteria ice cream vat with a smaller one. Result so far? Less consumption.
* Motivate yourself with music -- especially if you’re having trouble working out or staying with your workout routine. Overweight women who played their favorite tunes while exercising were more likely to stick with their exercise regimen for 24 weeks than women who skipped the music, according to findings recently presented at the annual meeting of the North American Assn. for the Study of Obesity (now known as NAASO, The Obesity Society).
* Enlist your grocer as a sous-chef. Buy presliced vegetables and fruit; precut lean meat or boneless, skinless poultry; and shredded, low-fat cheese. Yes, it costs a little more -- but often just pennies. (For example, during a recent trip to the grocery store, an 8-ounce package of sliced mushrooms cost 20 cents more than the same size of whole mushrooms.) And the convenience could make the difference between cooking a healthful meal and stopping for high-calorie takeout.
Or pick up a roasted chicken or two for dinner one night and use the leftovers for soup, tacos or a topping for pasta the next night.
* Fill your cookie jar not with cookies but with strips of paper that have an activity written on them. It could be wrapping presents, writing Christmas cards or holiday notes, walking around the block, giving yourself a bubble bath, doing push-ups or calling a friend. When you feel hungry, reach into the cookie jar and do whatever you pull out.
