Photo: Viacheslav Nikolaenko (Shutterstock)

It’s the brand new yr and everybody’s on a weight loss program—I mean, a wellness journey. Whether you ought to drop pounds or not is none of my business, but I do beg you to please, please let all the next silly weight reduction “hacks” die. Lots of them verge on disordered eating behaviors, while others are only ways to make yourself miserable for no reason.

(By the best way, in the event you feel like your relationship with food is uncontrolled, the National Eating Disorders Association has a screening tool, helpline, and more resources here.)

Smaller plates don’t make us eat less

This one is a classic: Serving yourself on a smaller plate is imagined to make a small amount of food look greater. Subsequently, you’ll eat less food overall, and eventually drop pounds.

But our brains and bodies are too smart to really be tricked by that. The concept smaller plates promote smaller portions got here from a lab that was later found to be engaging in sketchy research practices. Other labs ran their very own plate size experiments and located that folks often don’t eat less when given smaller plates. What’s more, we recuperate at estimating portion sizes once we’re hungry. The small plate hack wasn’t fooling us in any case.

Drinking a glass of water isn’t going to satisfy your hunger

There’s a typical healthy eating tip that claims in the event you’re hungry, it’s best to have a giant glass of water, because sometimes our bodies can’t tell hunger and thirst cues apart.

But there’s no evidence that that is true, or that drinking a glass of water will help. One in every of the oft-cited papers on hunger, thirst, eating, and drinking found that we actually get somewhat hungrier after drinking—so even when it were true that our bodies mix up the signals, the proposed solution isn’t prone to help.

Ultimately, there’s nothing improper with drinking a glass of water in the event you think you would possibly like one, whether you’re hungry or not. But don’t idiot yourself into considering that hunger pangs are your body telling you that you simply’re thirsty. Your body knows the difference between food and water, okay? That’s why you haven’t starved or dehydrated to death yet.

It’s not necessarily a superb idea to eat like a bodybuilder

There’s a stereotype about bodybuilders eating nothing but chicken breast, brown rice, and broccoli out of little plastic containers. They eat with discipline and find yourself shredded, so this should be a healthy meal alternative, right?

While it may well be a effective meal in the event you enjoy it, this mixture is just not the most effective or only approach to meal prep—especially in the event you aren’t a fan of the person components. Chicken breast and rice are each notoriously unforgiving with regards to meal prep, anyway. They have an inclination to dry out, especially in the event you prepare them without marinades or sauces.

So ditch your idea of what healthy food looks like, and make a plan that involves foods you truly enjoy. Upgrade to chicken thighs, learn to make use of a superb marinade, throw that dry rice in a waffle maker, or simply make a wholly different recipe. It’s okay for food to taste good.

Oh, and while we’re discussing bodybuilder habits: no, eating many small meals doesn’t “boost” your metabolism.

It’s a weight loss program, not a life-style change

This last one isn’t a lot a hack as an oft-repeated platitude: “It’s not a weight loss program, it’s a life-style change.” Should you’re attempting to drop pounds, please don’t make this a lifelong process. Weight-reduction plan is the act of deliberately undernourishing yourself. Should you want or have to do it for a short while, then own that alternative, and do it within the healthiest manner you’re able. But when you’ve lost some weight, get back to completely nourishing your body again.

In spite of everything, it might not be healthy or smart to drop pounds ceaselessly. Because the way we drop pounds is by eating fewer calories than we burn, the precise meals and habits that help us drop pounds are usually not going to be those that help us maintain our ideal weight once we get there. On the very least, you’ll should increase your portions.

So in the event you feel like your current weight loss program or habits need to vary, make certain to separate out what should change on the whole (example: cook at home more often) and what should change temporarily (example: smaller portions). Healthy eating and undereating are by no means the identical thing.