These pages have had much praise of Brian Wansink’s book, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think. Part of the reason is that this brilliant and articulate food psychologist has a knack for uncovering eating behaviors that lead to unwanted over-eating. Some of us have guessed a few of these, but then he goes the second mile and does creative research to discover exactly what is happening.

Many dietitians have been counseling for years for their patients/clients to not skip meals. Some of us have written about it to provide help for those seeking weight management techniques that will sustain weight loss. I personally have both counseled and written about this issue; always telling the dangers of going long periods of time without eating. In my experience and observation, skipping meals has led my patients and loved ones to consume more calories than were in the skipped meal. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worked with overweight persons, who believe that skipping meals is a great way to lose weight. For many it’s been a difficult concept to overcome. A related but varied concept is, “I’m not hungry in the morning.” When you have the benefit of food records, it almost always becomes apparent that the individual does not eat much all day long, and then eats too many calories late in the day. They say they are not hungry the next morning, so often the cycle begins again.

Dr. Wansink and his researchers’ latest paper in the Archives of Internal Medicine gives an interesting perspective on what I call the ‘skipped meal syndrome.’ In short, his latest study discovered that when people haven’t eaten for many hours, they turn to high-calorie foods like starches and high calorie protein foods. They say no to vegetables. A second piece of information that this research uncovered is that, those who fast, i.e., skip meals, end up eating extra of the first foods they chose. This part of Wansink’s study, I never guessed. The participants of the study ended up eating almost 47 percent more calories of the food they chose first compared to the other menu items.

You may have many reasons to legitimately skip a meal or meals; medical tests or procedures; a thoughtless or chaotic work environment and/or schedule; religious fasting and, of course, self imposed fasting.  Can you do anything to better protect yourself from mindless, calorie dense overeating after a fast?

• If you’re just real busy, not fasting for a medical or religious reason, you can have an ‘emergency snack’ in your pocket. Consider a packet of nuts; a piece of fruit; a Larabar; or another trail mix style snack. These portion-controlled snacks may save you from chowing down with wild abandon on starchy breads, French fries, or whatever goodies are in your path.
• One of the places to start protecting yourself is to discover what will be in your environment. Maybe you want to be sure you don’t put your hungry self in a situation with lots of starchy, sweet or fatty foods. Frankly, I think that’s a good idea to arrange our environments all of the time; I call it environmental control. We should never have to worry that hungry after fasting we will come face to face with a cupboard full of cookies, chips, cakes, crackers and so on. We will never have to worry about that in our own home if we clear out such tempting invitations to mindless eating.
• Lastly, just having Wansink’s study in mind may be encouragement enough to try to get the veggies into our tummies first. Hey, if we eat mostly what we begin with, beginning with veggies may protect us from overdosing on starchy foods or fatty meats. It’s worth a try.

Most of us live in a land of plenty and this turns out to be both a blessing and a challenge. Thanks to innovative researchers like Dr. Brian Wansink, we can keep learning new ways to keep ourselves from the health problems that accompany weight problems. Now that we’re aware of the ‘skipped meal syndrome,’ we can assess our eating environment and make plans to shield ourselves from a snack attack that will yield extra pounds on the scale.