There are many little things you can do to make healthy decisions easier on yourself. Let's face it, we all KNOW that eating unhealthy food is bad for us, but time and time again we choose to do it anyway.

The fact is, 90% of the issue everyone has is mental and not physical. The physical action of eating a piece of fruit over a burger is easy. Going for a run is easy.

But making the decision to do those things is downright hard - especially when you are trying to change years of ingrained behaviour.

So, I've put together a list of a few simple actions you can take to help make the decisions easier on yourself and control what you eat. Hope you find it useful:


1. Use smaller plates:
Simply put, bigger plates = bigger portions.

If you try to just put less food on your plate, it doesn't work. It physically looks like you are not eating enough and your mind remains unsatisfied. But, change the size of the plate, mentally you will feel like the meal is more filling.

If you put the same size portion on both a big plate and a small plate, your mind (and stomach) don't view them as the same size. The one on the smaller plate looks bigger and more filling whilst the one on the bigger plate looks less satisfying.

Research suggests that making this one change, you will actually eat 22% less food over the course of a year.


2. Use taller glasses:

Our brain has a tendancy to over estimate verticle lines.

Taller drinks look bigger than shorter horizontal mugs do. So using a taller, thinner glass means you drink less (about 20% less). So, drink your soda out of a tall thin glass and your water out of a shorter horizontal mug.


3. Use a plate that is a different colour from your food:

Like the first example, the colour of your plate also affects how much food you serve yourself. Food that is similar colour to your plate can look like less, so you end up serving yourself more.

Get yourself some dark green and blue plates. These contrast well with light coloured food like pasta so you serve yourself less. But they don't contrast very well with green leafy foods and vegetables (meaning you will eat more of them!)


4. Use your environment to your advantage:

Is the junk food in your house displayed at the front of your fridge? Is there no fruit in your fruit bowl? Do you HAVE a fruit bowl?

When you are hungry and in a rush, you are more likely to grab the first thing in front of you. So put a bowl of fruit or nuts near the door or somewhere you will pass by before you leave the house.


5. Wrap unhealthy food in tin foil and healthy food in plastic wrap:

Wrapping unhealthy food in tin foil hides it from view. "Out of sight, out of mnid". This means you won't have to look at it every time you open the fridge door. Your mind often decides what it wants to eat based on what it can see. If it can't see the unhealthy food but can see the healthy food wrapped in clear plastic wrap, then you are more likely to choose the healthy food!


6. Put healthy foods in big prominent boxes and unhealthy foods in smaller ones:

Big boxes are more likely to catch your eye - so you go to them first for something to eat. Smaller boxes can hide away and be forgotten about. Seriously, go and check your kitchen now and see what has been left stored away unnoticed!

If you get a large box of something unhealthy, split it out into smaller containers. This also helps when you do eat it as rather than eating the full big box worth of food, you are just eating a smaller box worth!

I know weight issues are primarily psychological for lots of people, but for sure, it's not true for me. My problem was 90% blood sugar related, i.e. physical. It wasn't psychological. Once I kicked most sugars and virtually all refined carbs to the curb, it was easy for me to choose healthy options, which for me is probably a grass fed burger (no bun) over a piece of fruit. I stopped being hungry, eat as much as I want, and rarely, if ever, go above 1200 calories in a given day. I wish I had realized all those years that I was obese just how physically addictive nutrasweet and refined carbs are.

Right now, I have in my house peanut butter M&M's, leftover Halloween candy, and probably a few other goodies that my kids are able to eat in moderation. I suppose I could have them if I wanted, but I'm not hungry. I'm not craving them. And I know if I do eat them, I'll actually feel crummy. And then I'll get hungry and physically crave more.

Not trying to be contrary - I'm just mentioning my situation in case people reading this thread have tried all the mind trick outs and still aren't getting anywhere - maybe it's time for them to consider that their problem isn't mostly in their minds, but in their bodies?

Now my reluctance to exercise, THAT'S a 90% psychological issue for me.

Wow I could just trick myself thin? That sounds so easy!

Hi Treasa,

Thanks for your response.

I agree that there are definitely physical issues when it comes to changing eating patterns and that for some people physical and or medical issues play a much bigger part of their issues.

The great thing about your story is that you've changed your perception of these foods and no longer view them as something to satisfying any physical or mental cravings you have. I suspect here there was a big mental shift for you as well. Yes, definitely a physical issue with blood sugar, but you've also changed your mental perceptions of those foods you ate at the same time.



The thing with addiction and cravings is that whilst there are physical responses to it there is also a huge psychological problem - which is why so people relapse even well after they've gotten over the physical symptoms of withdrawal.

People spend years creating habits that control their lives without them even knowing. Simply the sight of a cake in a shop window can set off a series of deep emotional cravings, despite them not being hungry at all. This helps explain why so many people yo-yo between weight on diets. They attempt to control their physical intake rather than address the psychological cravings they are having for those foods through years of inbuilt habits.

Simple actions like the ones I've written about can seem just like little tricks, but they can also be immensely powerful on levels we are not even aware of consciously. Doing them consistently, making tiny little changes to your habits can have huge profound impacts over the long term and make the physical acts of doing something much much easier.

I think with any physical problem someone has, there is also a huge psychological element behind this, whether we are aware of it or not.


Btw, I would love to know how you kicked this habit? What sort of process you followed. More for my own personal interest really as I know that a lot of people, even when recognising the same things you have, still can't do it (hence the physiological discussion :P)!

It's not necessarily about tricking yourself (well I supposed it sort of is ), it's more about understanding how your mind perceives things.

Essentially if I said I was going to give you $1000, that is a lot of money (by the way, I'm not going to do this lol).

But, if I say that I'm going to give you $100,000 and then change my mind and say I'm only going to give you $1000 then suddenly that seems like a lot less.

Similar principles apply with the plate "trick" I mention. You're just putting the food into perspective. A small plate makes a portion look big, whilst a big plate makes it look small.

It's just about removing some of the willpower needed to make the right choices and making things easier on yourself.

If you have to rummage through all of the junk food to get to a healthy meal stored at the back of your fridge, you are having to constantly avoid the temptations and cravings that the sight of the junk food brings. But, hiding that junk food away (or getting rid of it entirely) means you aren't having to waste mental effort trying to resist temptation. You're able to make the right decisions for yourself much easier.

I think it's totally ridiculous to think that little plates and storing foods in different containers has any impact on how much people end up eating. Especially for people who have eating disorders. You think most of us haven't tried these dumb tricks? By the way you forgot "brush your teeth after dinner which signals your brain to stop eating" and "hide ground up spinach in your cookies".

Obesity is complex and behavioral patterns are difficult to police with simplistic strategies. I can have a mountain of fruit in my fridge and the tiniest plates in the world but if I want a burger then I will have a burger and no strategy listed above is going to change that. Any simple strategies for that lol?

I had always been thin or average weight until I was in my mid thirties. I'd also always been more of salty rather than a sweet eater. I remember in my twenties I thought I was being healthy eating a bowl of oatmeal with chopped banana or munching on a whole wheat bagel without butter even though either of those things would set me starving two hours later. But I was thin so once I got hungry, I'd eat some other low fat, high carb choice (probably pretzels). In fact, everyone around me would beg me to - look up hangry in the urban dictionary and that was me.

But then I had babies. I'm not a coffee drinker and I would get tired (so tired) and I'd drink Diet Coke to keep awake or to feel alert. It was a busy time. One of my babies had severe medical issues and my husband was starting up his own business, so dedicated exercise to work off all those pick me up carbs , even long walks pushing the stroller, became very difficult. I think that the lack of movement along with my nutrasweet addiction worsened my blood sugar issues and I began to eat more more chocolate and more sweets. That's something I'd never really done before. I remember being tired once and thinking this bowl of chocolate ice cream will wake me up. And it would, temporarily. It was never mostly psychological with me. I was hungry. I was tired. Sugary things perked me up. And so my life continued along and several kids later I was obese. All that time and all those pregnancies my blood sugars tested in the normal range. A few years ago, I began reading alternative health websites and I began to realize what was going on with me, something I was never going to get if I stuck with the advice of the mainstream medical community and the USDA. Fat does not equal bad! Oh my goodness! I had to put down the bagels and the pretzels! Life changing realization.

The hardest thing for me was giving up Diet Coke. THAT was an addiction in every way - physical and psychological. I cold turkeyed the Diet Coke and I focused on the physical aspect of the blood sugar rushes. In the mornings and to perk me up, I'd have plain green tea with lemon (on ice). Whenever I wanted a Diet Coke, I'd substitute something sweet, typically a little bag of Famous Amos choco chips. I did that until I had kicked the Diet Coke physical and emotional cravings (I was having dreams)! to the curb (about two months). During that time I didn't lose, but I also didn't gain. Hmm. All those cookies and no gain? I was onto something getting the fake food out of my life. Then, I decided to cut out sugar. The first few days whenever I wanted some sugar, I just had some apple slices. That took three days and then I didn't even miss the sugar. The weight started falling off.

Then Lent came and I decided to go to a more whole foods diet which meant cutting out bread. Lots of eggs, meat, butter, olive oil, and veggies. It also meant I went into ketosis and the weight kept coming off.

At some point I made a conscious decision to back off weight loss and go into a very slow weight loss/maintenance mode where I'd eat a little more bread and an occasional sweet. Got down to 160 doing that. My scale is broken so I don't know what I weigh now but I'm in size 8 jeans so I'm doing fine. It's a lifestyle I can live with. Naturally smaller me is back. I'm not skinny and I may never be again but who knows? Eating like this is obviously good for me. Fat me is gone and maintenance isn't hard so long as I keep in mind that refined carbs are, for me, physically addictive. Any psychological change came as a direct result of the physical changes.

I do struggle with making myself move more. I know I feel better when I exercise. I look better too, but I don't think exercise necessarily helps me lose weight.

Ok, that's cool if you want to believe that.

You're the one who started a silly thread about losing weight without noticing. Thank you for the valuable advice you have given to us. We love simplicity around here. I think you may have saved our life.

Treasa! Awesome. My story right there as well. Why fat is actually awesome and not to worry about scales!

The way you kicked the diet coke habit as well is amazing. Those tiny steps and modifications to your habits were brilliant.

I know you said firmly that your issue was physical and I'm not disputing that, but the way you went about the changes was actually quite psychological (this is me latching onto a small thread in your story in the vain attempt to prove my point :P).

The tiny changes you made (diet coke to choco chips) essentially means you're replacing a part of the habit. I know you said you went cold turkey but you didn't avoid the addiction completely - ie, when you had the cravings you didn't just try and ignore it. You addressed it and changed the habit to something else. This is the part where a tiny change you made to your habits helped you out. If you had just ignored the coke habit completely and didn't try to replace it, I bet it would have been much harder to kick.

Essentially that's what I did (except mine was cake). At work we have a cake table, annoyingly. It's still there. I have to walk past it about 10x a day. And every time I did I would pick at it. I tried initially to walk a different direction and I had limited success, but eventually I always had to walk past it and I would always pick at it again.

So, instead of ignoring the habit I just made sure every time I walked past it I had a bag of nuts in my hand already that I could eat. This tiny change right here set me off on my own weight loss and fitness journey. Eventually I didn't even need to carry a bag of nuts. Walking past the cake table just started to trigger a craving to eat nuts instead of cake.


Although I've learned to enjoy certain types of exercise, this isn't nearly as important as your diet. (Rule of thumb is that a good diet accounts for about 80% - 90% of solving weight problems). No reason not to try different things and see if something sticks - but generally if you don't enjoy it, don't worry too much about it.

Your welcome

I like the small plate idea, will start doing it!

I've been replacing rice with oatmeal and trying to eat veggies / protein with it.Is this unhealthy?

I normally eat rice for breakfast/lunch/dinner, I'm Asian hahaha.
The past few weeks, I've been eating fast food and coke so I gained (0.6kg) even while working out 3x/week with a trainor. I'm really keen on shedding the extra lbs (60lbs to be exact). I was wondering if this will help (oatmeal). I'd like to know if you have any recommendations for healthy snack alternatives, I'm also more of a salty eater so I'm kinda getting tired of oatmeal and fruits / raw veggies. I miss my crunchy chips!!!! Is there a healthy organic chip in the market? hahaha I've checked kettle but the sodium content is way to high. Thank you!

PS: I was wondering if the weight gain is also because I missed my cardio sessions? I do strength training 3x a week (with cardio before and after) but initially, I went to the gym 5x/week (3 days strength training & 2 days cardio). I'm having trouble doing the 5x thing cos of work but at the same time I don't want my efforts to go to waste. I've only been working out for 3 weeks, I'm just worried about the drastic weight gain. Thanks again!

Hey gladiatorinasuit,

What is unhealthy is not eating enough of foods with the right nutrition to keep you feeling full. If you eat a tiny bit of oatmeal or don't fill yourself up enough with the right food, you will feel the cravings for snacks before your next meal time.

You've said that you're eating oatmeal with some protein, that's fine. Trying to get 20g+ protein for breakfast is a really good idea as this can leave you fuller for longer.

In terms of your weight gain, this isn't necessarily unhealthy weight gain. If you're doing strength training, you're going to be putting on muscle. Quite simply, it could just be that. Also weight will fluctuate a lot, especially within a short time span. I think when it comes to measuring your weight, I find the best way is to look at body fat % (get it measured professionally as scales with the readings on are high inaccurate).

If you are going to track your physical weight then do it once or twice a month. Anything less than that and you'll see alot of variation in the weight depending on when you weighed yourself, what you've eaten the last few days, how much you have drunk etc. But doing it over the long term you'll see the trend.

For your snacking, don't worry about changing up everything all at once. If you are missing your crisps, you've got a habit to change. Don't deprive yourself of them otherwise you will let cravings build up and eventually you'll give in anyway. Best thing to do is carry on eating the crisps, but swap out one day at a time. Eg, if you eat a pack of crisps every day, then on your first week just swap one day out with something healthy. Then the second week swap another etc.

Hi Gladiator,

I feel your pain about snack foods/crunchy salty things. I've tried to switch to things like Stacy's Simply Naked Pita Chips (sea salt only). They are baked, so not a whole lot of fat. They have a great crunch and are not too bad on the sodium or carbs provided you have only an ounce. I don't have any in the house right now or I would give you the nutrition stats. You can look it up on My fitness Pal.

Also, Pepperidge Farms Goldfish aren't bad either, about 140 calories for 1 oz. or 55 pieces, 20 carbs, 250 mg sodium. You could also look into rice cakes. I used to eat those a lot. Not sure how many carbs are in those, but they are probably low sodium.

Another idea is popcorn. I've heard lots of people talk about Skinny Pop, but I haven't tried it. They have a lot of healthy Pre-made popcorn out there now that you should be able to find in your local grocery store. If you really want no sodium, you could buy an air popper and pop your own. No salt at all there. Plus, I've seen butter sprays for very little calories to add some tastiness because air-popped corn is kind of bland, IMHO.

So, I've got all of these snack suggestions for you, but I've tried almost all of them and have found from my personal experience over the last 2 or 3 months that Davey's advice may be the best - namely, to eliminate the snack food habit altogether. I've tried most of my own suggestions and have found that I lack the self-control for these foods. I tell myself I will just have the serving size, but then I eating it and I go back for more, and more, and more! I think it is the carbs. For me, the more I eat, the more I want. I'm going to try and substitute celery and carrots for that snacking thing. Also, the other diet I was on allowed pickles. They have that crunch and the vinegar taste, which satisfies the salt craving.

A great book on this topic (e.g., food addiction for snack foods, sugar, salt, etc.) is The End of Overeating. I think that is the title. I don't remember who wrote it, but you can look it up. I've never read it, but it discusses how the food industry manipulates the ingredients in snack foods like salt, sugar and fat to make food more addictive so the public buys more and more. My dad gave it to me after he read it, but I gave it away without reading it. I think I might be one of those people that needs to cut out all of that stuff since I haven't been able to exercise any self-control around those foods.

Good luck to you on your journey! I hope you find a path that works for you.