introduction

“Gillian Riley has developed an exciting and truly original understanding of the underlying problems associated with eating and dieting.

- Jill Arnold, Senior Lecturer in Psychology

Eating Less: introduction

When it comes to making changes in your eating - whether you think of it dieting, losing weight or healthy eating - certain approaches are usually suggested. This book will have you question them.

MYTH: Wait until you’re hungry before you eat.: Using hunger as your guide can be inconvenient, impractical and very difficult to interpret accurately. Much research has shown that hunger is unreliable as a signal to eat.
MYTH: Stop eating when you’re full.: Most people don’t feel the ‘fullness’ of what they ate until quite a few minutes after finishing their meal. If you tend to overeat, this is too late.
MYTH: Sugar is addictive, so the only solution is to abstain.: It’s a very tall order never to eat sugar again. If your success depends on abstinence it will be fragile, and once broken there’s no other strategy to use.
MYTH: Stop eating sugar, wheat and/or processed food, and your cravings will disappear.: There are plenty of yo-yo dieters who have kept to healthy regimes for months at a time but returned to overeating because their desire for these foods resurfaced.
MYTH: Eat anything you fancy and trust your body to tell you what it needs.: If this worked, there would be none of the many ailments and diseases associated with poor nutrition. This book shows you how to overcome your attraction to the manufactured 'non-foods' that can make you ill.
MYTH: Avoid temptations and keep yourself busy to stop thinking about food.: As you may already know, this strategy will only take you so far. As with any problem in life, evading it doesn’t resolve it in the long term.
MYTH: Don’t eat while watching television.: This advice is to keep your attention on your food, but nobody suggests you shouldn’t have a conversation at a meal! You can eat less at meals - and talk, read a newspaper or watch a programme at the same time if that’s what you want to do.
MYTH: Overeating is the result of unresolved emotional issues.: Yet many people overeat when they’re happy and enjoying themselves. It can be liberating to discover a way to overcome overeating without delving into your past.

Welcome to a completely different solution.

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