What is Reddit's opinion of Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life?

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I know you are getting down voted but I was "lazy" at that age. Not academically or in terms of workload. But I didn't like running, sports, or most physical activity (I'd bike to get around, but because I wanted to get places not I saw it as something to do for itself). Physical activity was not recreation to me most of the time so I wasn't motivated to do it.

Seeing if you can find some ways for her to be more active is good but it won't necessarily solve the weight issue (healthy though!) especially if she only does it occasionally. As hard as it is she needs to start learning and practicing healthier eating habits or sadly I think she will experience more social consequences. (It's like she already is in primary school, sadly.) Her weight may become a health issue as well. She needs gradual long term change towards healthier eating.

I heard an interview with the author of Slim by Design which I admit I haven't read but he talked about ways you can set up your household and meals that encourage eating better or less based off research. For example smaller (but not tiny) plates, portioning out in the kitchen and leaving the rest on the stove so you have to get up to get more, the color of plates, ect. Also habits that encourage awareness like no eating while multitasking. Maybe it would be worth a look?

Slim by Design (Book) talks a lot about small changes one can make to ones everyday life that affect calorie-intake.

A small suggestion for crisp cravings (was also mentioned in Secret Eaters): Use smaller bags. (Or re-bag them into weighed portions and put them away.) You will eat less of them for some reason (probably something to do with a 'stopping point' that was mentioned by the food scientist in Secret Eaters).

>As a real woman, she doesn’t have time for that diet or exercise nonsense!

>TBH tho, the ones saying they don’t have the time make me sad. They know diet and exercise works, but they’re so far removed from true healthy habits that they can’t see how little extra effort those habits can take. It’s easy to get big while not eating more than a modern serving per meal, having one snack or fun drink a day, and eating ‘healthy meals’ like a full burrito bowl or a salad with cheese and dressing. It took me way too long to realize that my ‘normal’ habits for diet and exercise were leading to my unfortunately statistically normal weight. I feel for these people who aren’t seeing the little changes they can make and how accessible healthier habits can be. It’s super frustrating, but at the same time it does require some willful ignorance and denial to maintain that ‘stuck’ mindset.

On the topic of small changes:

Slim by Design (Book) talks a lot about small changes one can make to ones everyday life that affect calorie-intake.

I don't have time to post a long, thoughtful comment right now, but The Blue Zones Project comes to mind. Change at the community level. Success stories from all over the USA and perhaps the world at this point.

Source 1

Source 2

Also, the book Slim By Design by Brian Wansink has a trove of research-based hacks to make the healthy choice the easy choice in cafeterias and grocery stores. For example, instead of schools outright banning chocolate milk and facing the ire of students and parents alike, they simply made white milk the default drink. Students who really really wanted chocolate had to then stand in a separate line to trade out their plain milk for chocolate. Most decided it wasn't worth it.

Unfortunately it's not just a matter of hormones - there's also behavior that occurs independent of hormones.

Many people 'reward' themselves after exercise or because of the exercise they did. Even if you tell yourself not to, it still on average happens to more people than not.

Sorry I can't link directly to a study to it because I'm reading it from a book called Slim by Design. Not a formal scientific study but they put their conference participants into a bit of a study - two groups before lunch were taken out for a 30 minute walk. The first leader told the participants it was a "scenic walk" and pointed out the local flora and fauna throughout the still rather brisk walk. The second group was taken at the same speed on the same route, but instead their leader called it an exercise walk, pointing out how far they've traveled, how far they still need to go, etc.

Upon returning to the conference, both groups were given the same buffet lunch options.

Quoting from the book directly: > Exercisers rewarded their hard work by taking less salad and by taking more chocolate pudding... the people who believed they had exercised had served themselves and eaten 35 percent more chocolate pudding... another group took more than twice as many M&Ms for an afternoon snack when we repeated this on a different day.

So while exercise might have some appetite suppressing abilities, a much larger study would be needed to demonstrate that to be factual and it does seem to contradict these rather lose findings in this book. As much as you want to dismiss the "me too" anecdotal testimonies, there seems to much more at play than just hormone levels. Even if hormone levels are going in the right direction, there's more still at play when you try to determine if you're going to consume more or less calories because of the exercise.

Fun fact: The 100 cal sweet portion pack trend by food companies was started by the food scientist behind Slim by Design (Book).