Die 4. Bright Line:
The most famous and most studied patient in all of psychology was a man named Henry Molaison, forever known to history as H.M.
H.M. had a bicycle accident at the age of seven, and after that he developed terrible epileptic seizures. His epilepsy was so bad that by the age of 27 he was willing to do the unthinkable. He voluntarily underwent surgery to have portions of his brain removed.
This was in 1953, before all that much was known about the brain.
The surgery did in fact cure his epilepsy.
Unfortunately, it also left him without the ability to form new memories.
From then on, H.M. knew who he was and could tell you a whole bunch about his past, but he didn't recall a single thing that had happened to him since his surgery.
He lived out the rest of his life, from 1953 until 2008, as a willing participant in some of the most illuminating studies in all of science.
In one of these studies, his caregivers brought him his lunch, as usual, and he ate it, as usual.
Once the tray was removed, of course, he had no memory of having eaten lunch.
He never remembered anything he did.
While he wasn't looking, the clock was set back to noon, and they brought in another tray of lunch.
He ate it.
And promptly forgot about it.
They set back the clock again and brought him another meal.
Without any hesitation, he started to eat it.
Wash, rinse, repeat.
How many full meals do you think it takes for the body to tell the brain that it's full?
The answer, as we have learned from H.M. and many other patients with similar conditions of amnesia, is several. Somewhere between three and five.
It turns out that even for slender people (which H.M. was), "feeling full" is a horrible indicator of when it's time to stop eating.
More typical measures include things like, "I've eaten the whole hamburger, all of the fries, and my soda is empty, so it's time to stop eating, " or "The T.V. show is over so it's time to stop eating."
The cold, hard truth is that our brains are awful judges of how much food our bodies need.
This has been confirmed by years of ingenious research in the lab of Professor Brian Wansink of Cornell University.
In one classic experiment, he invited people into his "food and brand lab," which is all set up as a restaurant, to try some delicious soup. Periodically, he'd ask them whether they were full yet. They'd look down at their bowl, see that it was still half full, look up at him with a quizzical expression, and say no.
Then they went back to eating their soup.
Little did they know that the soup was being refilled, slowly and imperceptibly, via a tube that ran out from the bottom of the bowl to a big tureen that was hiding under the table.
None of them noticed a thing.
They ate 73% more soup than control subjects who ate from normal bowls, but both groups of subjects estimated that they'd eaten the same amount of soup (e.g., "about a cup") and both groups left the lab giving identical ratings of how "full" they were.
People also eat significantly more off of bigger plates than small, when helping themselves from bigger serving bowls, and when eating popcorn out of larger tubs.
I totally relate to this. There's a Mediterranean restaurant in town I love to go to, and they serve their food to each person on huge platters. Even though I try really hard to eyeball my portions, I always leave there feeling unusually stuffed.
It doesn't matter that I know in advance that this is going to happen. And the research bears this out. Being highly conscientious and thoroughly armed with foreknowledge of the brain's trickery makes no difference at all. No matter how hard we try, we will still fall prey to these portion-size illusions.
If you're just trying to maintain your weight, this isn't so much of a problem. The body is actually pretty good at rocking and rolling with those differences and keeping your weight stable.
Roughly.
(Of course, as many of us know, weight also has a tendency to creep up over the years--and this is a big reason why.)
But what if you're not trying to maintain your weight? What if your goal is to LOSE weight, and then keep it off?
Well, my friend, if that is your goal, then this whole portion-size thing is a very serious problem.
Which brings me to the
FOURTH BRIGHT LINE:
Weighed and measured quantities.
That's right. When I'm eating at home, or packing my lunch at home to bring with me, I weigh it on a digital food scale.
Always.
Does that sound crazy to you?
Okay.
Fair enough.
Want to know what sounds crazy to me?
This year, in America alone, 80,000 people will have their leg or foot amputated because they can't manage the food they're putting in their mouth and their Type 2 diabetes is totally out of control.
Eighty thousand people. This year.
Now THAT's crazy.
And anyway, most people don't get half the reason I weigh my food.
True,
half the reason is so that I don't eat too much.
But the other half is so that I eat enough.
Seriously.
People grossly underestimate how MUCH wholesome, delicious, real food they need to eat in order to lose weight and feel great. And when you're not eating enough of that wholesome, delicious, real food, what do you fill up on instead?
You guess it.
Junk.
When I use a food scale I'm guaranteed to be eating ample portions of the best foods and just the right amount of everything else.
But the real cherry on top is that weighing my food gives me FREEDOM.
Personally, I have spent too much of my life thinking about my weight and what I should or shouldn't be eating.
I'm over it.
Therefore, today, I am open to using any tool that will reduce that mental chatter and free up headspace for living my life.
When I weigh my food I never have to wonder if I should have seconds because "maybe I didn't get enough."
And I don't have to worry about eating slowly, chewing lots of times, putting my fork down between bites, drinking lots of water before a meal, or any other crazy gimmick aimed at keeping portions in check.
My portions are "in check" right from the beginning, and once the meal starts I get to do what we all do best: chow down until the plate is empty.
Of course, it goes without saying that the other HUGE bonus is that I am no longer powerless over my weight. I weigh exactly what I want to weigh.
A quick example: after the birth of our third daughter I was wearing size six jeans within three weeks. I did that safely and healthily.
All because I gained just the right amount of weight during the pregnancy and I knew how to take it off after the birth.
And remember, I'm not a constitutionally thin person.
I'm a constitutionally fat person. With a food scale.
Until next time,
Susan Peirce Thompson, Ph.D.