Is Your Kitchen Sabotaging Your Weight Loss?

By Kelly Turner on January 22nd, 2010

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You’re doing your best to finally drop the pounds: not eating out, cutting the crap, exercising your hardest, but the weight just won’t budge.

What if I told you your kitchen might be the issue?

GASP! But it’s full of fruits and veggies and low-cal treats! How could this be?

How big are your plates? Research shows, the bigger your dinner plates, the more you will eat. It’s an optical illusion … kind of. The more empty space you see on your plate, the less satisfied you will feel when you go to eat it because your eye balls are telling you it’s not enough. Therefore, you load up on bigger portions or seconds to appease your peeps. Use small plates or salad plates for you meals and you’ll feel full on proper portions.

Where is your fresh fruit? If it’s in the crisper, it’s probably going to stay there. You are more likely to grab the first thing you see when hunger hits, so having fresh fruit out and ready to grab will keep you from going for higher calorie treats. Put your fruit in a bowl on the counter or on your dining room table so it’s easy to grab on the fly.

How is your food packaged? People have a built-in tendency to eat a single portion of food, regardless of its size. If you keep everything (cereal, ships, crackers, granola) in their original packaging, you will probably over indulge. Therefore, proportion everything into little bags or tupperware so you stop at single servings.

Where’s the light? Sounds weird, but the dimmer the lighting, the more you will likely eat. Switch to higher wattage bulbs or just open up the curtains.

What’s your color scheme? Another weird one, but the colors red and orange are proven to stimulate appetite if they are the predominant color in the room. If you have red or orange walls, consider repainting.

Are you a bulk foods junkie? The more food you have, the bigger the pressure to eat, or make use of, it before it “goes bad.” Don’t stock up on things that will sabotage your weight loss, like big bags of high calorie snacks, processed carbs, and gallons of peanut butter and mayo.

Take a look at the very place that is supposed to be your healthy food safe haven. It may be doing you more harm than good.