Mindful Eating

I went for a 'run' on Sunday and again on Monday evening. I use the term run very, very loosely as I have pretty much lost any sort of cardio I had and found myself struggling after a few minutes. It reminded me very much of my first couple of times out running with THR last January. It was such a struggle and I remember thinking that I would never been a runner. My one saving grace this time around is that I know I can be a runner. I love it now and as much as I struggled, it will get easier and I will be able to push myself further. My hip, which I was worried might be sore after two days, felt fabulous. Running is officially back in my workout regime.

I have made no secret of the fact that I am a geek (or nerd, dork, dweeb... I'll answer to any variation thereof) both on here and on my other blog. As a result, my RSS reader is filled with both health and fitness blogs as well as science-geeky blogs (that's the technical term). Today in my reader, I found this article about mentally overeating the food you're about to consume so you eat less of it. I, of course, found this fascinating.

When I think about the mental aspects of eating, it's about the choices I have to make. How do I make a salad seem exciting when those fries smell sooo good? How do I convince myself that I'm satisfied when there's still food on the table/plate? Is it possible, however, that I've actually been overlooking a simple step to help control my eating?

I wanted to read more about the study, but the link provided in the article goes to the study and you have to pay to read it. It's $15US just for 24 hours access. Not going to happen. Still, the article has given me a lot of food for thought *rim shot* about how much I may have overlooked the mental aspect of weight loss. It's definitely a self-experiment that I'm going to try out over the next few holiday weeks. At the very least, it can't hurt to try, right?

Question: Do you have any mental tricks you use when it comes to food?