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Lose weight with lasting results? Redesign your kitchen!
Goodbye old habits
The food choices we make are often habits, such as having a cookie with a cup of coffee or always eating French fries on Friday. Losing weight is in most cases* a matter of eating healthier and less, and getting more active. Living a healthier life means changing your behavior, which is one of the most difficult things ever. It requires motivation, will power and perseverance (Motivation is an unreliable friend). There are also simple tricks you can do to make life a bit easier, such as redesigning your kitchen.
Redesign your kitchen
Research shows our environment effects our behavior and our health. In an unhealthy environment where for example fast food is easy available, the risk of overweight/ obesity is higher compared to an environment with less unhealthy food options and more options to be active outdoors. (Health effects of Vitamin G).
We are not fully in control of what our living environment looks likey, for example the neighborhood we live or work in. But we are in control of what our home environment looks like. A healthy home increases the chance of healthy behavior. With a few simple tricks, you can redesign your kitchen and support healthy eating behavior:
Cookies in the cupboard, apples on the table
Food that is in sight gets eaten. Guess what happens when the cookies are on the table and the apples are in the fridge? Store the unhealthy products in the cupboard and put the healthy products on the kitchen counter.
Soft drinks in the veggie- section
The vegetable box in the fridge is often not the first thing you see when you open the fridge, when actually the products in there are super healthy! Reorganise your fridge and put soft drinks in the vegetable box and the vegetables in sight in the middle of the fridge, at eye height.
Small plates and tall glasses
When we use a smaller plate we eat 22% less calories without being hungry. Use small plates for every meal. (A smaller plate for weight loss).
When we use tall glasses for soft drinks or for alcohol, we poor 20% less than we would in wide glass despite no actual content difference between a tall and a wide glass. Our brain automatically goes ‘wrong’. This is something to use in your advantage, by only using tall glasses.
Switch the salt
Many people consume too much salt (sodium) which is very unhealthy. By filling your salt shaker with potassium salt instead of sodium salt, you reduce the adverse effects of too much sodium salt. In addition, potassium has a positive effect on blood pressure. Most people don’t notice any taste difference!
Create your own health!©
References
*In some cases, overweight/ obesity is a side- effect of an underlying medical condition and not the result of solely an unhealty lifestyle.
[1] Wansink B. From mindless eating to mindlessly eating better. Physiol Behav. 2010 Jul 14;100(5):454-63. doi: 10.1016/j.physbeh.2010.05.003. Epub 2010 May 12. PMID: 20470810.; Wansink B, Pope L. When do gain-framed health messages work better than fear appeals? Nutr Rev. 2015 Jan;73(1):4-11. doi: 10.1093/nutrit/nuu010. PMID: 26024053.
