New Year's Resolution: Trick Yourself into Eating Better

Here's an easy New Year's Resolution:  Trick yourself into eating better. 

You can easily set up your kitchen (and some habits) that lead to eat better or less.  But since you will know what’s going on, you won’t have to feel tricked.
​
Quartz used this "Trick yourself" title for a catchy story on my Cornell Food and Brand Lab colleague, Aner Tal.  It’s about 3 minutes long and has a lot of eye-opening tips and insights.  What’s unusual is how Aner describes why these work in a suave James Bond style and how Quartz cleverly illustrates them.  Too cool for school.

Here’s some of what they mentioned:

     1. Use lighter plates
     2. Use smaller plates
     3. Cut your food into pieces
     4. Don’t watch TV when you eat
     5.  No scary movies
     6. Don’t shop when you’re hungry (you don't buy more, you buy worse)
     7. Deprivation always backfires

Some of these might sound pretty basic, but it’s Aner's description of how they work and Quartz's funny illustrations that really make them pop.

Aner flew out to visit me from Israel a while back, and we were talking about how people react after they hear about some of these discoveries.

Some people hear about suggestions like these and say to themselves “That would never happen to me,” so they don’t try to do anything different, and nothing changes in their life.  Other people say to themselves, “Yeah, that makes sense” but they never do it, so, again, nothing changes in their life. 
​
No one is going to hear about 7 discoveries and make 7 changes in their life.  It’s too much.  But you can make 1 or 2 of them.  After they become habits, you can always come back to the table for another course.