Eat Like a Baby to Lose Weight

Eat like a baby to lose weight and I don’t mean to eat any purees or other mashed vegetables like potatoes, carrots or pumpkins. What I mean is to eat as often as babies do and the way they do it – until they feel full and then stop opening their mouths for more. The only problem here is we can’t literally do eat the way babies do, but we can and will try our best to succeed.

For adults it takes about 20 minutes for the satiety center in your brain to register the feeling of fullness and to send out the signal to the hypothalamus gland *. After receiving the indication, the hypothalamus gland, which controls hunger, simply shuts your appetite and you don’t feel like eating or drinking anything more.

Here is the problem why we can’t literally eat like babies do – these 20 minutes for shutting down appetite are just too much for an adult. An adult, who by the way can eat, over eat and even over stuff oneself like a Thanksgiving turkey for those twenty minutes. For babies this reaction time is twice faster – about 5 to 10 minutes, according to my personal non-scientific observations on my children.

Babies Eat to Live, Adults Live to Eat

That’s it – I am 100 percent sure of that! Babies eat to live, and adults live to eat. Babies are in a hurry to eat and off they go to play again, while we like to talk, chat, text, browse internet, tweet, relax, stress out, watch movie or TV show, read the newspaper or book, etc. while still eating. Any of these “activities” can take you much more than 20 minutes, unfortunately so takes eating along with it.

It turns out that eating for adults is like escaping from everything else even for half an hour or less (work, stress, responsibilities are all gone so you can enjoy your lunch, for example).
On the contrary, eating for babies is like pulling them away from all the fun and interesting games, putting them in the high baby chair and stuffing them with a spoon full of some pureed soup.

How to train ourselves to eat as often as babies do and until we feel moderately full, not overwhelmingly fed up?

1. First: you should try eating at least 4 times a day – breakfast, lunch, afternoon meal and dinner.

2. Second: the size of the meal portions:

Breakfast – one medium sized cereal bowl of wholegrain breakfast cereals is great. OR one cup of skim milk and 2-3 wholegrain breakfast crackers is perfect. OR Medium sized sandwich with some lean meat like chicken, tuna etc or with low fat cottage cheese (my favorite). And a cup of juice and/or sugar free coffee is also served along with the breakfast 😉 But please try to not to sweeten your coffee even artificial sweeteners – trust me it’s for the best.

Lunch and dinner vary depending on where you are during the day – home, work, business trip, official dinner, etc. Remember one medium sized portion is enough, NO desserts, or at least no patisserie. You can eat 1-2 fruits depending on size and please wait at least 30 minutes to 1 hour before eating that fruit.

Afternoon meal – around 3 – 4 p.m. – that’s my personal favor…It should be one medium sized fruit like banana, orange, apple, etc. OR a handful or raw nuts OR a cup of yoghurt…

The afternoon meal is very important and should not be missed, because it helps you feel not very hungry for the dinner, so no dinner overeating is possible. And as a dieter you should know dinner overeating is one of the worst things to do while trying to lose weight.

3. Third: There is a popular game show called “A Minute Is Too Much”, well I’d paraphrase it to 20 minutes are too much for eating.

20 Minutes Are Too Much for Eating

That doesn’t mean you should run away from the table after 10 minutes without finishing your meal. NO! Here’s the key – you have a portion of meal and you know approximately how much calories it contains, and you eat it – nothing more, nothing less. Eating can take you 10, 20 or even 30 minutes if you talk to your table-companions, but as long as you eat your portion it’s OK.

Do not take an extra portion, do not eat a patisserie desert (one fruit is OK but wait at least half an hour after eating), no chocolate, no ice-cream, no any other junk foods just to keep you busy chewing something.

Eat like a baby to lose weight may sound a little bit crazy for some, a little bit too drastic for others, but please wait and you’ll see. The longer you stick to this regime the better the results will be and I promise you’ll feel the difference – firstly with your stomach, because you will never ever feel like you are about to throw up any second and then with your mind…You’ll reunite your body and mind and feel somehow peaceful. Your body won’t fight your mind anymore and vice verse. And the extra pounds – they’ll be shed for good.

* Hypothalamus gland controls hunger, thirst, and sexual activity.