I have the best fat loss trick ever.

It’s not an exercise or workout, although they can certainly help.

It is not a fad diet or crazy gimmick, although they can work also.

Paleo, South Beach, Atkins, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Mediterranean diet, juice cleanse, the Chocolate Chip Cookie Diet and about 100 more.

ALL

of these diets work?

How can that be? Simply, the diet gives you the structure to do something different than you have been doing. That 

WORKS

! Typically that means you eat less, eat fewer calories,

eat differently

than you have been and you

lose weight. That is how people find short term success on nearly any diet. They all work, at least for some time.

What happens after you get bored with the diet? Bored eating the same things? Frustrated you’re told that you can NOT have certain foods? Defeated when the diet stops working?

There is no long-term

strategy

with these diets and no skill building. Usually we go back to doing whatever we had been doing before we started the diet and the weight comes marching back.

So what’s the alternative?

.

Not a touchy-feely idea of mindfulness, but real skills.

So here is your trick, which is not a trick at all.

Eat slowly and stop eating when you are 80% full = Mindfulness.

Ok great, what is slow and how do I know when I am 80% full?

First you need to know that eating slowly and eating until you are 80% full is a skill that you have to build. You won’t be good at it right away.

Ever learned a new language? I bet it wasn’t so smooth at the beginning. What about when you learned to tie your shoes? There probably wasn’t a perfect bow at the beginning.

But with directions and a strategy to build that skill I bet you got better quickly.

So what does that mean?

First, take the time to ask yourself:

Are you eating because you’re hungry, or are you eating by the clock? If you think that you are hungry, let’s make sure you actually are and that is not an emotional response or habit.

Are you bored?

Is that tray of muffins staring you in the face?

Did you smell bacon cooking somewhere?

Are you angry?

Is it lunchtime according to the clock?

Are you out with friends?

Sometimes environment, smells, emotions, and social situations can trigger feelings of hunger. Check in with yourself.

If we eat slowly and tune in to the smells, tastes, and feelings that food provides, you will have your answer.

Stop when you reach 80% full. That number can be hard to grasp at first, but generally we know when we are satisfied when we choose to check in.

We often have tons of stuff going on when we eat; TV, conversations, people watching, a time crunch, work to get done. It is easy to just keep on eating, and crush everything that is on your plate but IF you stop for a minute and check in with yourself along the way you will have a clear answer.

Does that mean you can’t have any distractions when you eat? Heck no, that is not realistic.

To be successful you have to take a step back during your meal to check in with yourself and ask yourself how you feel.

You know how you feel when you ate way too much, you can learn how you feel when you had just enough, or are satisfied.

This question is answered by how you feel in the hours following a meal.

If you’re hungry again in 1 hour, first ask yourself, “Have I been drinking water?” It is easy to mistake thirst for hunger.

If you have been drinking water, you’re probably not thirsty, and there’s a good chance you under-ate at your last meal.

If you’re not hungry 3-4 hours after your last meal, you probably overate.

Ideally, you want to begin to feel hungry 2-3 hours after your meal.

Give it a try, practice it, keep practicing and achieve.

This skill has had a greater impact on long-term positive nutrition change and fat loss than any diet I have seen.