1. YOUR DAUGHTER-IN-LAW has invited you to dinnerand she s eager to please. There s shrimp, beef, rice, noodles,corn, broccoli, and raspberry pie and chocolate truffle candy.
2. If youre like most people, youll want to try a little of eve-rything. But watch out. "A wide variety of foods at one meal cancause you to eat much more," says health and behavior expertThomas Wadden. "Thats because each different food has its ownsatiety level. " However, you can learn to turn off your hungerswitch. Scientists have discovered that appetite is controlled by bi-ochemical signals. Certain foods trigger the desire to eat more,while others tend to suppress that desire. Heres how to controlthe urge to overeat.
3. Dont skip meals. "People who skip breakfast or lunch tendto overeat in the evening,, notes obesity specialist Dr. C. WayneCallaway. "This is common among chronic dieters. "
4. A problem is that during meal——-skipping, the bodys storeof glycogen, used as a fuel, drops. That signals the body to de-mand food and could make you hungry.
S. Down your appetite. "Drinking water is the number-oneway to artificially reduce appetite, " says nutrition expert Dr.George Blackburn. The reason: liquids freshen the mouth and takeup a lot of room in the stomach, and when the stomach is full thedesire to eat is reduced.
6. Aim for 64 ounces of liquids daily. In addition to water,good choices are skim milk, herbal tea and low-calorie fruit juices.Dont gulp down entire glassfuls of liquid as if it were medicine, oryouI1 never continue. Sip three to four ounces at a time through-out the day.
7. Soup it up. In 1989, researcher Barbara Rolls and her col-leagues at Johns Hopkins University in the United States invited 12men to lunch for two weeks. On different days the men receivedone of three appetizers, tomato soup, cheese and crackers, or freshfruit. Calories in each appetizer were equal. Then the men ate amain course. Tomato soup beat the other two in reducing the num-ber of entree calories consumed. Soup lowered later calorie intakeby 25 percent compared with cheese and crackers. The key may bethe large volume of space that soup takes in the stomach.
8. Snack sensibly. Mother always warned against eating beforemealtime. Now scientists are rethinking that advice.
9. A large meal, especially one that s sugary, stimulates thebody to produce insulin over a longer period this, in turn, re-moves excess sugars from the bloodstream and encourages fat stor-age and production. With smaller,more frequent meals, less insu-lin is released over a shorter period. According to some scientificthinking, this helps in the weight wars by lessening the amount offat produced and stored.
10. Nutritionists call this small-meal approach grazing, and forit to be effective, you have to munch the right foods. "You cannotgraze on candy and ice cream because your insulin levels and appe-tite will increase" , says nutrition-research specialist James Kenney."But if you graze on low-fat, high-fiber foods such as carrots, pea-ches, oranges, red peppers, whole-wheat pasta, potatoes or oat-meal, youll keep your appetite down. "
11. If grazing sounds like too much freedom to eat, schedule itin advance. Plan your day so that you can snack with healthfulgoodies every two hours or so.
12. Eat more complex carbohydrates. A few years ago, dieterswere encouraged to dine on high-protein, low-carbohydrate foods-ahamburger patty with cottage cheese on a lettuce leaf, for example.
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