Welcome back everybody, it is Becky Williams. I am super excited to come back with you for another bonus video this week. And this week I'm going to talk about 3 Ways To Avoid Overeating At Meals. 

Now the theme of this is more focused on holiday eating. But I will tell you, if you take these principles that I'm going to talk about today, it's just 3 steps guys, these are easy to remember. Take these 3 steps and apply these to every time that you eat, it should help you on a day-to-day basis, whether it's Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever holidays that you celebrate with your family, this should be able to help.

Look, we all do it, okay, me included. Sometimes the amazing aroma of delicious flavors just get the best of us, especially if you're a little bit hangry or a little bit hungry, right? I am talking about overeating at meals and this can really have a big impact on our weight, but also our energy levels, our overall health and our well-being. Of course, our bodies do need fuel, right? Food is fuel, we all know this. But often we're going to overeat on things that are either not healthy for us or too much of what's healthy, just too much food, too much abundance of food overall? We still overeat even if we're making good choices. 

In this talk that I'm going to give you today, or in this video I should say, I'm going to give you 3 solid tips preventing that from happening. Seriously, these are just 3 things you can do every day on the regular, part of your daily routine to help you with your cravings. Let's talk just real quick about why we overeat, all right? Part of the thing is, one, there may just be an abundance of food. I know for us, like I've talked about before, I'm in Louisiana and food is everywhere, food is everything. You celebrate with it, we mourn with it, we always have food. So part of it's the abundance, part of it is the decorations, the ambiance of all of it. If you go out, let's say, to a nice dinner with your spouse and they have romantic music playing, they have the mood lighting and all that, and they bring you this beautiful appetizer and then they bring you this beautiful entree, and then they say, would you like some dessert? And you're like, oh no, I'm really full. But that cheesecake that's stacked up this high with beautiful decorations and they decorate the plate and say happy anniversary and all that. So you're like, yeah, I want some dessert too. Well, you're overeating partly because of the environment that's around it. It's very easy to do, it's very common. And guess what? Even though I give you these 3 tips, you're still going to overeat sometimes and just be okay with that.

It's not going to be a huge deal as long as you're not making a habit out of this. So some studies have shown that drinking a glass or two of water before a meal can actually the amount of food eaten. This is a super simple trick that might even help with weight loss. Just saying that would be an added bonus for you. Not only will the water start to fill up your stomach before you go to the buffet or to sit down at your dinner table, whatever it is, but it's going to be leaving less room for the feast. But drinking enough water has also been shown to slightly increase your metabolism. So that is a win-win overall. All right. So step 1 , you still with me? Step one is not hard. Just drink water before you eat. 

Step number two, or tip number two, however you want to look at it, is eating mindfully. I've touched on this in different videos, but basically mindfulness, according to your eating habits, is just focused on what you're doing, focused on what you're eating. You're smelling it. You're feeling it. You're looking at your food. You're seeing the colors. You're completely focused on your food. Okay. This can totally help you with avoiding overeating as well because it also helps with digestion.

So if you're eating mindfully, you're not just scarfing it down or watching a video and your hand's just doing this and you're just eating and you look down and you're like, oh, I'm at the bottom of the bag of chips. How did that happen? Right. Okay. Being mindful when you meditate helps you to focus on breathing, helps you be in the

present moment. Being mindful when you eat helps you focus on your meal. All right. So mindfulness is, in its typical sense, is focused on mindset and things like that. This is applied to eating and just paying attention to what you're doing. 

So the way to do that is to take smaller bites, eat more slowly, chew thoroughly, savor every mouthful. Notice and appreciate the smell, the taste, the texture, and breathe in between bites. This can also help prevent overeating because eating slower means that you often eat less. Remember I talked about it takes about 20 minutes for your brain to tell your stomach, hey, we're cool, we're full, stop eating.

So most of the time we are completely done with our entire plate before 20 minutes. So your body doesn't have time to be like, whoa, stop, hold. Okay. So take your time, pay attention to food and enjoy every bite. Bonus tip. Eat at a table and not in front of a screen. Eat off of a small plate and put your fork down in between bites. It will help you. It will force you to slow down. Okay. It'll force you to stop doing that. 

Final tip, tip number three, to start with a salad. You might be yearning for that rich, creamy main dish. I get it. Don't start there. Okay. Don't worry. You can still have some right after you've eaten your salad. But the reason is vegetables are a really great way to start any meal because not only are they full of vegetables, of course, right? Because it's a salad. It's a salad. Duh. All right. Not only are they full of vitamins, that's what I was trying to say. Minerals, antioxidants, health-promoting phytochemicals, but they also have some secret satiety weapons, which is fiber and water. So you're starting with the water. At the end, you're adding in the fiber and the water together. All of it's working synergistically together. 

These secret weapons are going to help you to enjoy your meal and not overindulge. So here's a summary. Have a glass of water. Eat mindfully. Start with a salad to avoid overeating. All right. And here are some really tasty and pretty, because that's important to me, pretty pre-water meal ideas. So this is not a recipe, so to say, but this is just some ideas for if you're like super tired of plain water or that just drinking a cup of water before you do your meal, you're just like, oh, just can't do it. It takes me out of the mood, out of the holiday mood, out of the romantic dinner mood, whatever it is. All right. 

So here are 5 delicious things that you could add to your water. Slice of lemon and ginger. Slices of strawberry and orange. Slices of apple and cinnamon stick. Chopped pineapple and mango. Blueberries and raspberries. All right. So if you buy like a big bag of frozen chopped fruit and throw those into your cup, a thermos or mason jar or whatever, they'll already be washed and cut and you can keep, it'll

keep your water colder for longer. That's what I'm trying to say. So basically it'll act as like ice cubes. 

So hopefully this has helped you. Top three tips on how to avoid overeating at meals. You can apply this anytime. Let me know how this has helped you. Hop on over to the Facebook group and join the conversation over there. I am Becky Williams and I'll see you again next week for another bonus video. Bye guys.