In this episode of Simple Shifts: Conversations on Food, Life, Weight and Mindset, Martha and Peter explore the themes of Mindless Eating, habits, and the psychological aspects of food consumption. They discuss insights from Brian Wansink’s book Mindless Eating, focusing on how our environment, social settings, and mindset influence our eating behaviors. The conversation emphasizes the importance of being mindful while eating and understanding the impact of habits on our food choices.
Key Takeaways
- Reading ‘Mindless Eating‘ was a turning point for Martha.
- Managing your environment is easier than managing your mind.
- Eating patterns can become automatic and unconscious.
- Social settings can lead to overeating.
- Mindset affects our perception of taste.
- Multitasking while eating can lead to overeating.
- Creating barriers can help break unhealthy habits.
- Pre-plating food can reduce the temptation to overeat.
- Tuning into your hunger can help manage portion sizes.
- Enjoying food mindfully can enhance satisfaction.
Mindless Eating Chapters 5 and 6 Podcast
Video Transcript
Martha McKinnon (00:00)
Hi, welcome to Simple Shifts: Conversations on food, life, weight, and mindset. I’m Martha McKinnon, and this is my partner and brother, Peter Morrison, and we’re so happy to be here with you today. Hello, hello.
Peter Morrison (00:46)
Hi everyone.
Martha McKinnon (00:47)
So how are you?
Peter Morrison (00:49)
I’m doing well. How are you today?
Martha McKinnon (00:51)
I’m doing really well. I’m happy to be here. We’re continuing our conversations around Mindless Eating, the book by Brian Wansink, which I really credit for providing me with the insight that helped me to get to where I am today. It’s been a journey, a journey of decades, but reading Mindless Eating and implementing all of the lessons in it and the suggestions really was a turning point for me.
I’ve tried to look back on it now because it’s been, it’s unbelievable, but I’ve read the book and started following its suggestions way back in 2010. So it’s been 15 years and it doesn’t seem possible. So I’ve sort of been looking back and reflecting to say, what was it that made that book so powerful for me? Because I think many people will read it maybe and not have the same light bulbs, but it really just caused a light bulb shift in me.
It changed just the way I saw myself. It helped me understand that for a long time I was just mad and frustrated and I felt broken and overwhelmed and just reading that book it made me laugh. And it just helped me to see that it was a human problem and not a Martha problem.
And there was just something, so I could breathe and it seemed so easy compared to just trying to manage myself. What he often says in the book is it’s much easier to manage your environment than it is to manage your mind and I think that’s so true. These steps sometimes seem so unbelievable that they would even work but they are so easy and why not? Why not try?
And it was magical. so I hope that by sharing these details and revisiting the book, that some other people will have the same happy experience that I did.
Peter Morrison (02:57)
Right, so today we’re gonna take a look at chapters five and six.
Martha McKinnon (03:01)
Okay, so chapters five and six. I’ve got some notes here, they really talk about eating patterns and the power of habits, our deeply ingrained habits and just how so much of what we do in life can just be done on like automatic pilot. We don’t even think about it. It’s just unconscious. And there’s that term in neuroscience, they talk about neurons that fire together, wire together, and the fact that when you engage in these behaviors over and over and over again, suddenly they’re hard to overcome, but they can be overcome. That’s the cool part.
So in the book, Brian once talks about a friend or a colleague who had this situation around slurpees in the 7-Eleven store and he had just this habit. It became like this everyday habit when he drove by the 7-Eleven. It was like the car just seemed to be pulled into the 7-Eleven for the Slurpee. And every time he saw a 7-Eleven, you know, there was this deep connection between 7-Eleven and Slurpee.
And that can be true. There’s lots of examples of that. Can you think of any habits that were ingrained in you growing up or like a deeply ingrained pattern or an eating?
Peter Morrison (04:23)
Growing up, I’d say through high school, I had kind of a similar reaction with fast food drive thru. The whole drive-thru was kind of, I forget when it became a thing, but all of a sudden it became dangerous. Like you could just go get fries or, you know, or an ice cream cone or at McDonald’s or an apple pie. It didn’t even have to be like a real meal.
Martha McKinnon (04:31)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Peter Morrison (04:52)
But it was so easy, you didn’t even have to get out of your car. I mean, how cool is that?
Martha McKinnon (04:57)
Well, and I’m reading that on some college campuses now they have robots that you can actually use an app and you can put in your order and the robot’s going to go and get the food at the cafeteria and bring it back to your dorm. I mean, talk about dangerous convenience. So I think what you’re saying is true, right? There used to be this delay between thinking about something, right?
Peter Morrison (05:15)
Wow.
Martha McKinnon (05:25)
Having a craving and being able to satisfy it and fast food, microwaves, frozen quick foods, now like, imagine having robots delivering your food. You don’t even have to go out and walk across the campus to get it.
Peter Morrison (05:35)
Right. But one of the things he talks about is barriers. So the slurpee, slushy thing, I understand it, but wow, you still have to drive there. You have to get out of your car. You have to get in the store. You have to pull out your wallet. A drive through or delivery is that that’s a totally different ball game for convenience.
Martha McKinnon (05:40)
Right. Right. Right.
Yeah, and this happened to be just on his route. So that will happen like every day. And I know I’ve I had the Starbucks habit for a few years back in the working days where it just became automatic to be pulling in to Starbucks to get the coffee and the sweet and not just the coffee, you know, the the pumpkin spice latte or the mocha.
Peter Morrison (06:01)
Right, right, right.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (06:25)
On the way to work, sometimes with a sweet treat, and it just became sort of automatic, Monday through Friday, because you’re just driving by it and you pull in, and like you said, now so many of these places have the drive-thrus, and so those can be patterns that get ingrained pretty quickly, right, because they’re satisfying, you’re tapping into your pleasure, your reward centers, you know, there’s nothing like the taste of a nice hot french fry or that donut or muffin or you know so many of these foods.
Peter Morrison (06:56)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (06:57)
So other habits – I mean we had quite a few like food I think deeply ingrained food traditions you know that yeah yeah you’re gonna share some of our family secrets and that’s what this is all about because people are gonna be able to relate right, so yeah share the pizza story.
Peter Morrison (07:11)
Sunday night pizza. We would have our regular dinner. Mom would cook dinner Sunday afternoon. We’d be sitting around dinner table, I don’t know, five o’clock on a Sunday evening or afternoon, and we’d be discussing what we’re gonna get on our pizza that night, you know, two hours later.
Martha McKinnon (07:37)
Right?
And it was like church and it happened weekly. Right? What are we going to have as we’re eating our dinner, as though we were even hungry those two hours later. We were going to enjoy this wonderful, delicious, you know, great pizza place. Pizza. Yeah. So that’s one that was deeply ingrained. And with Dad, you know, I think about ice cream in the evenings was just very, very common.
It’s hard for me even now to go to the movies without popcorn. I mean movie and popcorn for me just they just go together.
Peter Morrison (08:14)
Well, just the smell walking into the theater, it’s intoxicating.
Martha McKinnon (08:16)
Yeah, right.
And so I have not tried to break that habit. We don’t go that often. And sometimes you have to consider does this work in your life? And if you were going to the movies two or three times a week, maybe not. But I mean, if we go to the movies, maybe two or three times a year, it’s not really a problem, right? So that’s the other thing we have to remember. It’s what we do all the time. Not what we do occasionally. That’s going to be a problem. So you’ve got to consider that in your assessment of your situation too.
Peter Morrison (08:41)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (08:46)
So yeah, the habits. You’ve got to consider that and then think about ways that you can untangle these habits, right? Or sometimes you can, like the guy in the book with the 7-Eleven, he just started driving a different way home. He just started taking a different route and then he didn’t see the 7-Eleven and then the problem was solved that way.
I know of and remember reading, I think it was a story probably shared in a Weight Watchers meeting of a woman who again had that fast food pull, you know, driving past the fast food and not stopping was very, very difficult for her on the way home after a long day. And so she started putting her purse in her trunk. So again, making it difficult. So if you’re going to now drive-thru, you’re going to have to get out of your car, and get into your trunk to get your money.
And so that was how she broke her herself out of the habit. So taking a different route. Again, this whole concept of making the habit that you’re trying to break challenging and hard, you know, create hurdles in it because it’ll change your behavior. We are very lazy. And again, they talk about a lot of those examples in the book in terms of convenience and the fact that the more convenient something is, the more we’re likely to do it.
Peter Morrison (09:57)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (10:15)
And they have these examples of like the ice cream freezers right in the cafeteria, right near the checkout. And if the ice cream freezer had a door on it, then you were much less likely to open the door and reach in for the ice cream versus if it was just open and you didn’t have to reach in.
Peter Morrison (10:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Or if the ice cream was positioned in a different line from where you paid for your sandwich and drink, but then you had to go to a different line to get it and pay again, you’re less likely to actually purchase.
Martha Mckinnon (10:44)
Right. Right.
Yeah, and I’ve done that with myself sometimes when we’re traveling. We will go to Culver’s, which I don’t know but do you have Culver’s around where you are? But they’re sort of a burger joint. I mean, I guess they’re Wisconsin based. There’s a lot of them in the Midwest. And sometimes when we’re traveling, they do good lunch, but they have this delicious I mean, every day it’s its frozen custard. So it’s frozen soft serve, but it’s very, very rich and delicious.
Peter Morrison (10:59)
No.
Martha McKinnon (11:17)
I would often just say, I’ll decide on that later, right? So you go, so you have to get back in line. I’m not going to decide on my custard now. I’m going to eat my lunch. Then, and again, oftentimes because you’ve created that hurdle, I’m going to have to go back. I’m going to have to get in line. I’m going to have to wait. You’re less likely to, to have the custard than if you just got it when you ordered your meal. So there’s a lot, you just have to think about ways to make, you know.
Peter Morrison (11:24)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (11:48)
Whatever habit you’re trying to break, make it less convenient. More of a hassle.
Peter Morrison (11:52)
What about the idea of the longer we stay at the table, the more we eat? Like what if you’re at a family gathering or it’s a holiday, it’s a one-off, but say it’s a dinner party or, you know, something you do more regularly with friends.
Martha McKinnon (12:01)
Yeah. Right.
Yeah, so there’s been there was study and there was research that says that the more people we are with the longer it’s sort of like it’s analogous to being at the mall, right? Or being at the grocery store. The longer you spend in the grocery store, they’ve shown the more money you’re going to spend. The longer you spend at the mall, the more you’re going to spend. The more time you spend at the dining table, the more you’re going to eat. And they’ve proven this the more people you eat with, right? The more you’re going to eat.
So again, I think that knowing it then can help you. So what are some of the things you could do knowing this reality, knowing the longer you sit there. And again, it can be really fun, right? You’re sitting around with friends or family, you’re having a conversation, music, you know, it’s just a good time. What are some things that you could do to make sure that just being there longer didn’t result in eating excess?
I think the whole dish and dine thing is powerful, right? Like not having the food on the table. So if you pre-plated the food and you were sitting at the table, even if you were done eating, you know, and you were still visiting, you wouldn’t be just reaching in for just a little more, a little more the way you would if you were serving the meal family-style. So that could be helpful. Another strategy would be to, and this is one that I’ve played with when I’m thinking about it, is to time yourself, like to try to be the last one to start.
Peter Morrison (13:16)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (13:41)
So that again, you’re delaying and slowing down the whole process and that can be helpful too you know, just to try to time it.
Peter Morrison (13:52)
If you leave some food on your plate, others might be less likely to say, have more.
Martha Mckinnon (14:03)
Have a little more. Can I get you more? Yeah. So leave a little behind. And that’s one thing that I’ve read. I continue to read on this topic in all kinds of different capacities. And so that’s one good strategy to just to practice with just leaving a little bit behind. You know, don’t be cleaning out your plate. And that can be helpful. Learning to sit learning to just and I think we’re going to get back to just learning to tune in to yourself to and to notice to not go on automatic pilot and to just be checking in with, am I hungry?
Am I no longer hungry? Because there are other cultures who have figured that out. The French are good at it. The Japanese, I can’t, I’m not going to remember the Okinawans have a saying, I’m not going to, I’m going to butcher it if I try. So maybe you can just look it up and share it, Peter. But they have a reminder to say only be filling up to like 75% full. So they’re constantly reminding themselves when they’re eating to not to overeat. That could be helpful.
Peter Morrison (15:04)
If you’re out in a restaurant environment, decide ahead of time, what you’re going to eat. I don’t know if it’s you or it’s in the notes, but to have a pick two rule where you maybe have an appetizer and a cocktail or appetizer and dessert or any combination, but rather than everything.
Martha McKinnon (15:08)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Right. That was an interesting one as I thought about this, because that was another really powerful script in my mind. And I can’t remember when it got pointed out, but the whole eating out thing. When we grew up, eating out was like very special, especially to nicer restaurants it was very, very rare, right? It was an occasion. It was maybe a couple times a year during summer, if dad was on vacation, there’d be a fancy meal.
Peter Morrison (15:47)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (15:55)
And so in my mind, the script around eating out was that it’s a celebration and that you indulge, you have the appetizer and you have the dessert and it’s just this celebration. It’s an event. And that script I took into later life when I was, you know, married and working.
Peter Morrison (16:11)
It’s an event. Yeah. Yeah.
Martha McKinnon (16:20)
And suddenly now you’re two married people working long days, commuting and eating out became common. You know, we probably ate out at least two times a week, if not more, right? Maybe two times eating out, plus bringing Chinese food in, plus bringing pizza in. There was a lot of that. And what I realized, and again, I think it probably may have been pointed out at a Weight Watchers meeting was what’s your mindset? What’s your mindset around eating out?
Peter Morrison (16:34)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (16:50)
And for me I realized even though eating out had become just part of a regular routine, I still took that celebratory, it’s an event thinking, into every time I ate out. It’s like, you know, it’s just Tuesday and we’re eating out because we haven’t had a chance to grocery shop and it was a really long day. It’s not a wedding. It’s not a birthday. But I was still having the appetizer, you know, having the dessert because I’m out to a restaurant.
So that was a really great awareness that I had to say, it’s time to change your thinking around eating out now because it’s just a Tuesday night. It’s not an event and so that was helpful for me. And again, thinking about it that way, just choose ahead what will I have, especially if it’s a restaurant you’re familiar with, like what will my choice be tonight? And how can I make it just a meal and not like this big, big event. You know, it’s Tuesday. If I were home, I wouldn’t be having dessert. So I’m not going to have dessert just because I’m in a restaurant, you know, so that helps me.
Peter Morrison (17:51)
Mm-hmm.
We had this one friend who we would take out to dinner occasionally. He was an older gentleman and he always ordered two appetizers. He never ordered an entree. He never ordered dessert. Not that I can remember, but he was a slim, healthy, and I don’t think I ever asked him, but I never really thought about it before.
Martha McKinnon (18:18)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Peter Morrison (18:23)
It just sort of popped into my head, but I’m like, oh, how interesting. He was ahead of himself, ahead of the time.
Martha McKinnon (18:25)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. So, right. And so you can start to just think about like, you know, what do I need? And again, tap into your hunger, tap into what it’s going to take to not be hungry anymore. If you don’t want a lot of leftovers, like Rod and I, when we go out, we will often share a meal and a lot of places will split it for you. You don’t even have to because sometimes they’ll just bring you a second plate, but sometimes they’ll actually plate it for you too.
Peter Morrison (18:37)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (18:58)
We were out with friends last night and it was funny and again we’re all older now and so they were eating – they were sharing a burger and the waiter brought a second plate and they cut the burger in half and so there are lots of things you can do to manage the situation right to take charge of it and not just be at the mercy of of the situation.
Peter Morrison (19:24)
Do you ever, if they’re bringing bread or chips and salsa, do you ever not accept it and say no? Because that’s one of the suggestions in the book.
Martha McKinnon (19:33)
It’s a good strategy. Yeah, it’s one of the suggestions. It’s good, especially if you’re hungry and you know you’re going to get into the bread and it’s going to be a problem for you to get it out of arm’s reach or ask them to take it away. And I think those strategies both work. I don’t typically do it. Rod likes to get into the bread.
Peter Morrison (19:52)
Yeah. Or maybe they could bring it with the meal instead of before.
Martha McKinnon (19:56)
And the chips here, I mean, we’re in Mexico for these weeks right now and chips and salsa are everywhere it seems. And that can be a challenge for me. The good news down here is sometimes the salsa is too hot. So it keeps my consumption down. And sometimes it can just become so routine that it’s less attractive, you know, just like, we’ll skip that.
Peter Morrison (20:05)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (20:23)
But I think it can be a good strategy if you know it’s going to be a problem just to say, please don’t bring it or please take it away. You know, again, you have to think about what you need to do to take care of yourself and to help yourself and to support yourself in reaching your goals and whatever you need to do to support yourself, I think is, is worth it. Some people, if they’re eating alone, I know they’ll ask for their takeout container when the meal comes.
Because you’ll say, I’m only going to eat half, right? But then you start picking a little, then a little more. And so sometimes just boxing it up and taking it right off the plate and putting it aside can be helpful as another strategy.
Lots of things you can do just when you start to just think about how you can support yourself. Thinking ahead can be helpful, for sure.
Peter Morrison (21:07)
Mm-hmm.
Martha McKinnon (21:18)
Did you get into reading the other big topic and this was how our thoughts and beliefs about food can affect our taste buds. And again, this gets into the whole mind body connection that I find fascinating. Did you get to the point where they talked about the fact that what we think, what we believe, what we’re sort of pre-programmed to believe the food is going to be has a very powerful effect on it.
And they did blindfold experiments where they fed people, I don’t know if it was ice cream or pudding or something and they told them it was strawberry but it was really chocolate and they were blindfolded and most people believed what they were told over. So, our taste buds I guess aren’t as accurate or they can be really influenced by what we think we’re going to taste which I find really interesting.
They did another one around Jell-O where I think this was a situation, I guess somebody shared where, I don’t know, I think it was a military situation where on a ship or something and the cherry jello had been used up and they only had lemon left and people started complaining about the lemon jello. So the cook added red food coloring to the lemon jello and made it look like cherry and nobody complained.
Peter Morrison (22:33)
Yes.
Martha McKinnon (22:44)
Although it was still lemon flavored, the red you saw red, thought you were going to taste something red and people actually did. So I mean the whole power of what you’re thinking as it relates to your taste buds I find fascinating too.
Peter Morrison (22:55)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (23:01)
All right. Anything else from this chapter?
I think those were the highlights.
Peter Morrison (23:12)
Yeah, I was just doing a quick look through. I’m trying to refresh my memory. Sorry, the chapters kind of blur together for me.
Martha McKinnon (23:21)
Yeah, most people aren’t asked to, you know, review based chapter by chapter. But so those were the major concepts, which is our habits.
Peter Morrison (23:30)
Eating when you’re at home and eating while being distracted or if you’re watching TV or working on the computer, I know I’m extremely guilty of eating while sitting at my computer.
Martha McKinnon (23:34)
Yeah, how could we forget that?
That’s a really, really important one. I’m so glad that you scanned the notes because that would be something we would not want to overlook. Yeah, there’s some things we shouldn’t do. We shouldn’t multitask around if we’re trying, especially if we’re trying to be more mindful of what we’re eating. If we’re trying to lose weight, eating while doing something else is a recipe for disaster. And I mean, there are so many experiments in this book and in other studies that have confirmed that fact. Yeah.
Some of the numbers were staggering, right? Like how much more food you eat when you eat while watching television or while driving, while working at your desk and, you know, checking your email. You just result in, and if you think about it, makes sense, right? Because eating is a sensory experience, right?
Peter Morrison (24:16)
Hmm.
Martha McKinnon (24:40)
And so, if you’re not paying attention to the smells, the taste, the chewing, to the swallowing, it’s not surprising that it somehow just doesn’t register the same way in your mind and in your body. And so if there’s one thing that you wanted to really take seriously from from this, it would be stop multitasking, right?
Sit down at the table, put your food on in a dish and just pay attention. And we’re not saying you have to eat like, sort of eat as slowly as you can. Be mindful, taste it, enjoy it. Really enjoy your food. And that can have a huge, I’ve been playing more and more with this one, just really trying to slow it down, tune in and really enjoy the food. And it, it does. I mean, I’m sometimes shocked at just how little I need to feel satisfied when you’re really tuning in to it.
And I think that sometimes when we’re so rushed and so distracted and we’re eating on the run, that’s just another recipe for overeating. Yeah.
Peter Morrison (25:46)
Well, he talks about after a spoonful or two of dessert, I’m not sure if it’s the law of diminishing returns or whatnot, but you sort of have reached that peak satisfaction from a flavor standpoint.
Martha McKinnon (25:55)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, if you would.
Right. And you have to think about why, like for especially with sweet treats, why you’re indulging in them, right? You’re indulging in them for the pleasure of it. They’re really not bringing a lot of nutritional value, right? To your body. You’re doing it for the joy and for the taste. And so to not tune in seems like doing yourself a huge disservice, right? And so if you really tune in, that first bite is going to be the most delicious.
Peter Morrison (26:12)
Mm.
Martha McKinnon (26:34)
And so when you really tune in and take two or three bites, that’s another thing that I take away from the French Ladies Don’t Get Fat on teaching. And if you really tune into it, yeah, three bites is really enough in terms of the pleasure, because it’s not gonna be as satisfying in those later tastes and bites for sure. So that can be very, very helpful to just to tune in and to enjoy completely.
And to say enough and again, if you’re not, if you’re letting go of the diet mentality, even if it still tasted good, you could say, well, I’ll have three more bites tomorrow. Right. Which is so helpful where if you’re in that diet mindset and you’re saying, well, I can never have this again, that works against you because it makes it all the more, you’re all the more tempted to overeat instead of just saying, well, tomorrow’s another day and I’ll just spread it out and enjoy it again with a little more pleasure.
Peter Morrison (27:09)
Exactly.
Martha McKinnon (27:29)
Because now that’s going to be the first bite and it’s going to taste wonderful again. Absolutely.
Peter Morrison (27:38)
Good, this has been very helpful.
Martha McKinnon (27:42)
Alright, well we’ll be back in our next session moving on to chapter six and seven of the book. And if you have experiences that you would like to share with us around reading this book or some of the concepts we’re sharing, please share them in the comments. If you’re enjoying what we’re doing here with these podcasts, please like, please subscribe, please tell others about what we’re doing here. And we’ll be back soon. Thank you so much for tuning in.
Peter Morrison (28:10)
Have a great day. Bye bye.
