Do you think it’s best to eat alone, with your spouse or with friends?
Research has shown that our eating partners often influence what we eat and how much we consume. I often recommend to my clients to be the first to order when dining out so they can make their choices before being influenced by their friends. You may have experienced this before… You’ve just finished a delicious meal, you’re sufficiently satisfied and the waitress brings over the dessert menu. “No dessert for me, thanks.” Your friend wants dessert but doesn’t want to indulge alone, so they gently, or maybe not so gently encourage you to join them. The carrot cake does sound yummy, so you decide to order despite being full.
This may surprise you, but your best eating partner is a baby. You can learn a thing or two from them. They eat only when hungry, stop as soon as they are full and clearly know their preferences. When we start introducing new foods to a baby and they dislike a flavor, what do they do? They lock their lips and turn their head. They also do the same when they are full. Sometimes, we as anxious parents, attempt to get them to eat just a “few more bites” to reassure us.
We would do well to mimic babies. At least before they unlearn what they naturally know. **Listen to our bodies. **Eat only when hungry, **stop as soon as we are full and **only eat the foods we like.
Now before someone tells me about their baby who ate “all the time”, some babies learn at an early age to soothe themselves with food, just as we do as adults. Unfortunately, this behavior is reinforced when the baby stops crying when fed, even when hunger isn’t the problem. We too, feel better after eating, even when hunger isn’t the problem. And so the cycle begins…
Most babies eat according to their natural body rhythms, until we disrupt it with using food as comfort, bribes (“if you just go on the potty, I’ll give you an M&M”), threats (“no dessert till you finish your dinner”) and rewards (“you did so well on your report card, let’s go get ice cream”).
So hang out with a baby, watch them enjoy their food of choice until they are full and contentedly move on to more important things… like sleep. See? They have it figured out!