The Eye Appeal Of Food

Appetite is influenced by sight. What you see makes a difference. If you are accustomed to seeing a full plate as you sit down for a meal, you eat and feel satisfied. When you diet, you obviously will see less food and immediately your eyes send a message that you will not be satisfied. The trick, therefore, is to fool your eyes. Rather than half-filling a regular-size dinner plate, use a salad plate and heap on the victuals. In this way your eyes are deceived.

Your eyes not only appreciate quantity of food, but color. Milk is white, beans are green, beets are red, lamb is brown, and corn is yellow. By upsetting the expected color patterns your eyes can be further deceived. This is accomplished by adding small amounts of harmless and inexpensive vegetable dyes to food during their preparation; thus the obese patient might sit down to a supper of:

1. Pink milk
2. Brown beans
3. Turquoise beets
4. Blue lamb
5. Lavender corn

This even sounds bad!

Smell greatly alters appetite and accounts for the bulk of what is tasted. There are only four tastes: bitter, sweet, salt, and sour. Aroma is responsible for the distinctive and subtle nuances which characterize various dishes. We recognize foods by their characteristic odors, not tastes. This process of smell association can be interrupted, resulting in a decreased appetite. To do this you should smell something just before a meal which you do not associate with eating. One suggestion is to take a couple of sniffs of a cheap and reeking perfume. Or take a couple of whiffs of motor oil. No one in his right mind would think of consuming either perfume or motor oil. So the nose relays an unfavorable report to the appetite center and the desire for food diminishes.

Eating Between Meals

Appetite increases when the stomach is empty and starts to rumble. At this point low concentrations of sugar in the blood further aggravate this tendency. Thus an excellent way to curb appetite is to nibble between meals. Unorthodox as this sounds, it works. Parents invariably tell their children not to eat between meals-it spoils their appetite. And they are correct. What is true for children is just as true for adults. A candy bar, a couple of cookies, or a piece of toast a half-hour before meals will provide bulk and a ready source of sugar for absorption into the blood stream.

Finally, as mentioned earlier, exercise markedly reduces appetite. The reasons are not entirely clear. A vigorous workout immediately prior to dinner can diminish or even abolish the desire for food. Many people on a combined program of weight reduction and exercise prefer to schedule their workout just before supper. This kills three birds with one stone: fitness, expenditure of calories, and loss of appetite.

One important warning! Do not “queer” your usual eating habits too drastically or for too long. Remember that these hints for weight reduction are temporary and will only be necessary while you are losing. Once you have attained ideal weight, these suggestions can be discarded.

Whenever weighing yourself for purposes of keeping the tally sheet honest, always choose the same time of day under the same conditions. In the interests of accuracy, the most reliable time is before breakfast, without clothes, while shaving, and after having emptied your bladder and bowels of their accumulated residue. Weigh yourself only once a week. Daily weight changes are more closely related to fluid and salt intake. Weighing yourself daily can be misleading and discouraging. It is not unusual for a person’s weight to fluctuate three to five pounds in the course of a single day.

If your caloric restriction is somewhat severe, it is wise to take a vitamin capsule daily during this period of semi-starvation. During periods of increased demand, such as growth, pregnancy, lactation, illness, or decreased intake as when dieting, vitamin supplements are indicated.