Texas Lap Band Surgeons Talk With You

You’re all going to think that we’re the biggest geeks that ever lived (assuming that you didn’t think that already).  But when we drive to Dallas every 6 weeks or so, we listen to various podcasts and educational CDs to pass the time.  Yesterday, when we coming back, we listened to 12 different short interviews conducted by Dan Ariely, a professor  in behavioral economics at Duke.  He interviews a wide variety of different people who discuss one of their important research projects and what real world implications it has.

Sounds super-ultra-dull right? Wrong!! He’s a really lively speaker and he only interviews people who have made interesting discoveries. What does this have to do with weight loss you ask?  One of the people he spoke with conducted what he called the popcorn study.   In the popcorn study, the researchers made only a small change in the way the popcorn was given out to movie-goers.  All of the people who ordered the large popcorn were either given the usual ginormous tub or they were told that the concession stand had run out of the big tubs- would they mind getting their popcorn in 4 medium paper bags instead?

So both groups got the same amount of popcorn; the only difference was the container(s) it came in.  What they found was surprising.  If you got all your popcorn in one big tub, you ate almost all of it.  But if you got in 4 sacks, you usually only ate one sack – only 1/4 of the amount!  They repeated this same scenario with some farm workers.  When the workers were given all of their paycheck in one envelope, they tended to spend it all.  But when they were given two envelopes, one with 90% of their paycheck and one with 10%, they tended to save the 10% instead of spending it.  If the researchers put a picture of the worker’s child and a note that the 10% was to be saved for their child’s education, absolutely nobody spent that extra 10%.

So it would appear that how we package food (known as “choice framing” in behavioral economics) affects how much we eat.  The food industry has come to understand this principle and that’s how we got the “100 calorie” packs.  But why not do this will all your food?  I’ve adopted this technique for two of my own problem foods – pasta and cereal squares. 

Left to my own devices, I’ll fill a serving platter with pasta and still go back for seconds.  But by dividing the package into single serving sizes (according to the nutritional label on the back) as soon as I bring it home, I don’t end up cooking the whole box by default and therefore eating half of it just because it’s there.  I do the same thing with the Kashi Cinnamon Squares to which I’ve become addicted – I divide them up into little snack size Ziploc bags to make my own little “100 calorie” snacks.  Because believe me, if I eat right out of the box, I’ll eat half the box.  That is problematic for several reasons: 1) it’s a lot of pure carb calories and 2) all that fiber can a make a person kind of socially unacceptable for a day or two if you know what I mean.

So start trying this with your groceries – both staples and treat foods.  You can do the same thing with leftovers, so you can take them to work for lunch over the next few days.  Or you can do it with food you cook ahead of time and use for lunch all week long.  Saves a lot of money over buying pre-packaged microwave meals and I guarantee you can make a healthier meal for yourself  with far less sodium.

The lesson to learn is that we can’t always trust ourselves to know when to say “stop”.  Sometimes you need your eyes (and a handy kitchen scale) to help you determine a good portion size.  The movie-goers in the popcorn study didn’t feel hungry and deprived…,neither will you.

Remember our cardinal rule: it’s not how much you can eat, it’s how little you can eat and still not be hungry between meals.