8 Simple Rules to Avoid Overeating

Here's 8 easy rules to help anybody avoid overeating...

1) Serve dinner on smaller plates. We're programmed to fill - and clean - our plates. This one is a no-brainer.

2) At restaurants, put half in a takeout box before you even start eating. Restaurant food is usually really yummy. If it's in front of you, you're probably going to eat it. Restaurants are notorious for huge portions. Plus having that nice (half a) restaurant meal for lunch the next day is a treat!

3) Don't go grocery shopping hungry. This just encourages you to buy tons of junk food. Head for the market after a good meal - those junk foods won't seem so seductive.

4) Drink water between meals. This can satiate your cravings to snack on junk food between meals.

5) Snack on fresh veggies. Because of high fiber, high nutrient content, high water content and low calories. Fresh veggies are the perfect thermic snack. They provide great nourishment for the body, stoke the metabolism, and metabolism of some veggies actually burn more calories than the veggie contains!

6) Drop dairy fat down a notch. After a few weeks weeks of lower fat dairy, not only will you not really miss the full fat versions - they'll probably make you feel gross if you try to go back to them.

7) Know your salad dressings. Salads are great! Unfortunately, many salad dressings are not. Most creamy dressings add 120-180 calories of pure fat to your salad - and that's if you go by the 2-tablespoon serving size!

8) Buy pre-portioned snacks. Hey, if you can't keep from stuffing your face full of chips or cookies, at least control yourself. One way is to buy the little snack-pack sizes. At least you'll be doing some damage control. The worst thing about processed snacks like cakes cookies and chips is that they don't fill you up, so you just keep eating them as long as they are in front of you. They also spike you blood sugar - which means a big insulin response - which means blood sugar then drops rapidly - which causes MORE CRAVINGS.