Book Review: Mindless Eating

Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think
by Brian Wansink, Ph.D.

Dieting? Thinking about dieting or trying to control your weight? Do you want to make smarter, healthier food choices? You'll want to read this book, even if you are an avid Weight Watcher or South Beacher or Atkins Advocate. Whatever your diet, the information in Mindless Eating will help you do it better and easier. I'm pretty much at my maintenance weight (four more pounds to get the rest of the Europe weight off) but even so, I still found a lot of fascinating food information in this book. I discovered why my mini-plate technique helped with my weight loss and maintenance success, for instance.

The majority of the book reports on how the author, his students, and various research associates created several scientifically sound studies, some of them downright hilarious, to figure out why people eat the way they do. They conducted studies involving self-filling soup bowls, North Dakota wine, and stale popcorn, among others. The conclusions are enlightening and helpful for anyone wanting to lose weight or maintain a current healthy weight. The end of the book includes recommendations on how to apply the study results to real life to achieve effortless weight loss. Additionally, it's darn readable. The author has a great sense of humor reflected in the book. The Eldest and I were stuck waiting for bureaucracy this afternoon and she wound up reading and chuckling along with me; she's planning to read the whole book as soon as I hand it over to her.

*I purchased this on my Kindle but there were some charts comparing diets in the back of the book that were almost unreadable due to their small size and my aging eyesight. You can normally change font size for text but I wasn't able to make the charts bigger.

**Disclosure: I bought this book for myself. I'm not a commercial blogger so I don't get paid for any reviews. If I'm reviewing it, you're getting my unbiased opinion.