How to lose weight WITHOUT changing your food

THE latest way to diet has been revealed by scientists - and it doesn’t involve swapping your food.

 

A new novel study reveals a diet tip to help you curb portion control

 

The way you furnish your dining room and kitchens holds the key to the tricking your mind to eating less food.

A team of food scientists examined the relationship between table/plate sizes and calorie intake.

They discovered participants ate less food if they dined at a large table. Conversely, those eating off a smaller table were more likely to eat twice as much.

 

Table size has been shown to alter people's perceptions of food size

 

The study found the large table distracted participants and created an optical illusion - because they assumed the food was larger than it really was. 

Lead author Brennan Davis, a researcher at Cornell’s Food and Brand Lab said: “To eat less food, serve food in small portions and on large tables.”

The experiment saw 219 participants assigned to one of four tables. Each table was set with slices of pizza.

 

The researchers say the findings should help people eat less junk

 

Four large, round pizzas had been cut into regular slices and smaller slices, which were then divided amongst varying sized tables.

The lucky participants were told they could each as much pizza as they wanted. 

Those eating on smaller tables were able to gauge that the smaller slices were just regular slices cut in two - and so indulged in double the amount of pizza. 

The new study was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. 

  

Mindful eating: this is just one of many recent studies on how you eat and its impact on diet

 

This is just one of many recent studies taking a novel approach to dieting. 

Other recent studies from the same journal discovered the less fancy the plate, the less you eat, eating with forks make you overestimate calories. 

Another mindful eating study found negative messages can double how much a dieter eats - in other words telling someone not to eat a biscuit, means they’re more likely to eat two.