Diet fads come and go, but there is one diet that will always work: listen to your body. If you feel like you’ve had enough then stop eating, and if you feel like you should have more lettuce then go get some!
New research confirms old knowledge that people with a healthy weight do monitor what they eat. They just monitor their food intake by acting on what their body is telling them.
But here’s the surprising thing: Nearly half—48 percent—said they don’t diet. Three-quarters of them “rarely†diet. These people are thin, and have been thin their entire lives, yet they have never so much as perused the Jenny Craig website.
One explanation could be good genes. The healthy-weight registrants might never diet because, being naturally thin, they never need to. Still, that wouldn’t explain why they do all those other things—the exercising, the salad lunches, all that poultry. Clearly, they are putting some effort into their figures.
Instead, Brian Wansink, director of the Food and Brand Lab, chalks it up to the fact that many of the registrants used “non-restrictive†strategies, like listening to hunger cues, cooking at home rather than eating out, and eating quality, non-processed foods.
“Most slim people don’t employ restrictive diets or intense health regimes to stay at a healthy weight,†he said in a statement. “Instead, they practice easy habits like not skipping breakfast, and listening to inner cues.â€