When you try to eat more mindfully, you may discover that you don’t need to eat as much as you think you do. This means you’ll probably eat less, between eating less often and not eating as much at a time. But even with the best intentions, it can sometimes be challenging to eat less for a few reasons. 1: Habit One of the greatest difficulties is changing your habits, and habits can be very sticky, especially food habits. Consider when you eat. If you’re used to eating

If you do much cooking or baking at home, you probably have several tools to help you. Maybe a favorite cutting board or knife, a blender, a favorite baking dish or pot, or more. I don’t know about you, but these aren’t things I think about that often. I tend to take them for granted, but in reality, they’re extremely helpful, and I likely wouldn’t do nearly as much cooking or baking without them. So, I thought I’d take a minute to appreciate a few kitchen tools. Stand

Have you ever thought about the words we have for food, or how we speak about food? Have you ever wondered if the words you use shape your relationship to food, even in a small way? I started thinking about those things after listening to an Earth Day podcast from Science Friday. It was about how people describe nature, and one of the guests was poet Kimberly Blaeser, founding director of Indigenous Nations Poets. At one point, Kimberly talked about how poetry changes whe

When you focus on eating when you’re hungry (at least most of the time), you may find that you want to eat at odd times. But even as I write that, I wonder what it means. Why does it feel strange to eat at certain times? Who decides what “mealtime” is? I started thinking about this because a couple of weeks ago, I had a day when I got hungry at times that were unusual for me, and I realized I might feel odd about eating when – and as much – as I did if I didn’t live alone

Have you ever had the experience of finishing a meal and feeling somewhat full, but also not feeling completely satisfied with what you had? I think this comes up fairly often, especially when people talk about having a “separate stomach” for dessert. That seems to be a way of saying that they’re full but not satisfied because they still want something sweet. I started thinking about this when watching the most recent episode of the YouTube series “Ask Hank Anything”. The

Note: This will have a few spoilers for season 2, episode 8 of the show The Pitt . Weight bias in the healthcare industry is unfortunately nothing new. I experienced it myself when I was in college, when a doctor insinuated that I got a staph infection because I was overweight and therefore must be unhygienic. (Never mind that staying at a hospital is a high-risk factor for getting a staph infection and was almost certainly where I got mine.) I do think there’s more aware

I watch a lot of cooking competition shows, and it always amazes me what kinds of dishes chefs can come up with despite bizarre ingredients, time constraints, or other rules. One of my favorites is Chopped , where chefs get mystery baskets with four unknown – and often odd – ingredients and have to use them in an appetizer, entrée, or dessert. But as much as I enjoy seeing their creativity, I can’t say it’s something I necessarily share. I may occasionally try a new recipe,

You’ve probably heard about the changes to food guidelines that flipped the food pyramid, with more focus on protein and less focus on whole grains, among other things. As is often the case, I have a hard time with these broad categorizations, and thinking about it reminded me of an exercise I did a while back. Good food or bad food? The exercise was to look at certain foods and ask, is this good or bad? Some items to consider were chocolate, pasta, hamburgers, and a salad

How do you overcome negative thoughts? Someone recently asked me this question, wanting to know my answer, especially in relation to my journey with food and weight. Here are some of my specific thoughts and how I got past them. I’m so fat and ugly I had this thought almost constantly in my younger years. It started with getting dressed in the morning, and it continued with seeing media images and comparing myself to every other woman I saw. I only started moving past i

Even if you’ve never heard the term “hyperpalatable food”, you probably know about these kinds of foods. They’re the ones that have been designed to taste so good that you have a hard time stopping once you start eating them. They also don’t make you feel full very quickly, even though they have a lot of calories. I began thinking about these types of foods, and my own journey with them, after listening to an episode of Trevor Noah’s podcast that featured an interview with