blog #23 Behavioral nutrition lose weight by siting and eating!!

I completed a dietary assessment on my client Rachel yesturday for my Medical Nutrition class.

The dietary assessment turned out to be 20 pages (of graphs, assessments, measurements, a dietary recall and 24 hour recall, etc.) From this extensive assessment I found the behavioral questions very interesting.

The one questions that struck out the most was: Do you eat sitting down/standing up? And how often?

It made me think about my fast paced crazy New York City lifestyle. I eat standing up, briskly walking, on the subway and even on the phone sometimes (I know that’s terrible and something I need to stop immediately.)

If I’m rushing to work I will buy banana from a fruit stand, bring a coffee with me on the go, or eat nuts on my way from school to work.

I critically contemplated the significance of sitting down during consumption (not just for dinner but all meals and snacks) and

heres my consenscous of why eating sitting standing is BAD:

Portion control (you can eat more standing up)

• It's important to eat sitting down so that you can see your food laid out in front of you
• Unplanned eating is also much more likely to occur if you are standing up.
• If you grab a sandwich on the go or even 2 portions of nuts instead of one you are most likely to finish the whole think because you aren’t paying attention

Satiety factor (feeling full)

• Sitting down allows you to become more visually satisfied.
• When you eat and walk you are multitasking and you don’t realize how much, how fast or even what you eat. Where’s the enjoyment in that?

Unsightly

• Eating isn’t the most attractive thing to watch in the first place, but seeing someone shove an oversized sandwich in their mouth on the go is just plain nasty.
• Leftovers on your……mouth? Because you are devouring that item (i.e sandwich) so quickly and frantically you end up leaving half of the sandwich (usually the condiments) on your mouth. Or if you are less fortunate the food stuff can trickle to a more permanent location like your shirt or pants. Even worse, as you spill your food everywhere you run into someone you know on the street (hopefully no one attractive) and your mouth is full when you scream “hello nice to see you.” Save yourself (and the rest of the street) the embarrassment, and eat seated.

Bottom line: make an effort to sit and eat which can help you with portion control. You may think you are getting more done by walking and consuming, but you can be adding stress to your day by looking unsightly and dripping your food everywhere but your mouth. sit down!