It shouldn’t come as a surprise that the size of the package your food comes in influences how much you’ll eat. The larger the package, the more you tend to eat from it.
And, if you’re eating from the bag while you watch TV or work on the computer, it’s likely that as you mindlessly move your hand from bag to mouth you don’t realize how much you’re eating or whether you’re full of not. So you probably just keep eating until you get to the bottom of the bag – and then eat all of the crumbs, too.
- It’s easier to stay away from chips and cookies if the bag isn’t in your line of sight – out of sight, out of mind.
- If you do buy jumbo size packages because they’re cheaper, put the excess somewhere inconvenient so you’ll have to work to get at it –like the basement, garage, or a high shelf that you need a stepstool to access. If you have to work to get the food it might take some of the desire out of it.
- Don’t eat straight from the package. Divide up the contents of one large package into several smaller portions. Put your portion in a bowl, on a plate, or even on a napkin. Count out your chips, crackers, and pretzels or only eat from a single portion size bag.
- Who can stop when there’s an open bag of salty, crunchy food right in front of you? It’s amazingly easy to just keep until the bag is empty. A dive to the bottom of a 9 ounce bag of chips (without dip) is 1,260 calories. One serving, about 15 chips, is 140 calories.
- And, leave the broken pieces of cookies or chips in the bag. Remarkably, pieces of cookies and broken chips have calories, too!