If you have a little foodie at home, they might just keep eating and eating without stopping during a meal, and that little body can easily turn into a little chubby ball. While they look adorably plump, failing to control calorie intake can easily lead to a predisposition for weight gain! Moms, come learn how to control your little foodie's food intake.
Tips 1: Drink Soup Before a Meal
Technique Principle: Drinking a bowl of soup or a glass of water before a meal can create a feeling of fullness, which helps you reduce your intake during the main course. Drinking enough water before a meal can dilute stomach acid and increase satiety. When you eat less during the meal, the effect of controlling your appetite is better.
Precautions: Drinking soup before a meal or choosing lemon water or warm water are both fine, but never choose carbonated drinks or juice. Soft drinks are not only high in calories, but they will also make you忍不住 eat a little more and then a little more!
Tips 2: Chew Slowly
Technique Principle: Our brains can be easily fooled. When you want to eat, the simple act of chewing can make your brain feel like you are eating. So, during a meal, try chewing each bite a few more times. This can not only make your brain feel full earlier but also allow your body to absorb several hundred fewer kilocalories. It can also exercise your masseter muscles, achieving the effect of slimming your face!
Precautions: Avoid wolfing down your food. Eating too fast makes food difficult to digest in the stomach and will burden your body! Even if you are starving, don't hastily chew a couple of times and swallow. You will end up eating much more food before you feel "not hungry"!
Tips 3: Use Measured Tableware
Technique Principle: Choose a small cup, a small bowl, or a portable electronic scale for yourself. Before the meal, measure out the amount and frequency of your food in advance, and then eat after allocating the nutrients and calories. You have preset your food intake in advance. After several tries, your brain will consciously follow the amount you set to eat. When you are no longer hungry, it will stop you from continuing to eat, so you naturally don't have to worry about overeating by accident.
Precautions: The total amount must be calculated accurately, and it must be set before the meal. If you just estimate vaguely, it's easy to give yourself the excuse "I haven't eaten enough" towards the end of the meal, and then all your effort to control your intake will be for nothing!
Tips 4: Ear Acupressure
Technique Principle: Our ears have many acupoints that can control digestion and metabolism. Simple pressing in the morning and evening can help us control our appetite. To reduce appetite and control your "greedy mouth," you can choose these two acupoints and press them intermittently on both ears in the morning and evening, about 30 times each.
1. Endocrine Point:
The Endocrine Point acupoint controls the appetite control center in the hypothalamus, reducing the feeling of hunger, increasing the feeling of fullness, and speeding up metabolism.
Location: On the inner side of the helix, below.
Effect: Increases satiety and promotes metabolism.
2. Hunger Point:
This is an acupoint closely related to the feeling of hunger. When the stomach sends a "hungry" signal to the hypothalamus, which controls appetite, a person will have the desire to eat. Pressing the corresponding acupoint can block the transmission of this signal.
Location: Above the earlobe.
Effect: Effectively suppresses appetite and blocks the transmission of hunger signals.
Precautions:
1. It is more effective to massage these two acupoints before a meal or when you feel hungry.
2. For more precise positioning, you can use a cotton swab instead of your finger to press the acupoints.
3. The skin on the ears is thin, so apply moderate pressure; do not press too hard.
4. Relax your mind and body. During the massage, in addition to concentrating your thoughts, you must especially be calm and peaceful, and your whole body should not be tense.
Tips 5: Get Moving
Technique Principle: Some people think that as long as they are inactive or move less, their stomachs won't feel hungry, so they can eat less, and they use this as an excuse to avoid exercise. In fact, people who have a moderate exercise habit every day have a lower desire for food than those who don't exercise. In other words, exercise helps you suppress your appetite.
Precautions: Don't exercise until you are out of breath when trying to control your appetite. Just break a slight sweat. Develop a regular exercise habit. When the urge to eat strikes, try doing some exercises to drive the appetite away.
Tips 6: Out of Sight, Out of Mind
Technique Principle: Ban food shows and food magazines! The saying "out of sight, out of mind" is absolutely correct. Because when you see it, you will think about it, and when you think about it, you will want to do it. Seeing the colorful and fragrant food programs or pictures and texts on TV and magazines often whets the appetite and creates a strong urge to eat! Quickly get rid of these temptations from your side.
Precautions: Bored at home and searching the fridge? Roaming night markets? Choosing a buffet restaurant for a date? These behaviors will trigger your appetite! Keep your eyes away from food to control yourself!
Tips 7: Change the Order of Eating
Technique Principle: Don't just grab your chopsticks the moment you see something you want to eat! To control your appetite, you can change the order of the foods you eat. Every time you eat, have soup first, then vegetables, then meat and staple foods. Use the lower-calorie soup and vegetables to fill your stomach, so that by the time you eat meat, you can prevent yourself from eating too much.
Tips 8: Eat a Light Diet
Technique Principle: If you want to control your appetite, the food you cook must be light. Dishes prepared by methods like steaming and boiling are light yet flavorful and refreshing to eat. Cooking methods like frying and stir-frying that can easily make you overeat should be used as little as possible.