Today i was thinking. If our stomach is supposedly only as big as our fist, then why are our meal sizes so dang large. Yes, the stomach can stretch to accommodate more food, expanding to ten times its original size (some research even lists it at 50 times), but why would we force it to do that?
Did anybody ever think that maybe, just maybe, the brain sees a stretched stomach as a sign that food is abundant in this meal? Therefore, the body should store some as fat just in case we don’t come across an abundant meal again.
What if the opposite were also true? The brain doesn’t see the stomach stretch and therefore decides that this meal wasn’t big enough. Instead the brain decides that it will use what was given for energy and rebuilding of the body.
As I thought about this, it reminded me of another thought I had. Since the stomach is only about the size of our fists, why not only eat that much at any one time. Less is ok, but not more. Would that reduce our calorie intake enough to lose weight? Would it make the brain use fat as an energy source instead of the food? Would only eating meals that fit into a bowl make such a big difference?
I started searching the internet to see if anyone else had made the same assumption about eating only as much food as could fit in a bowl. Low and behold they kind of did. I came across the cereal bowl diet.
The basis is to eat a cereal bowl full of vegetables before you eat your lunch and then another bowl before you eat dinner. I would say, let the bowl be lunch and let the bowl be dinner. With the vegetables add a small portion of chicken, fish or beef in it.
I could also turn it into a soup if I wanted too. I think it makes sense. Maybe I’ll try this 1 or 2 days out of the week to help reduce the amount of calories I take in. I’ll then eat how I normally do the rest of the week. Let me know if anybody has tried doing something like this before.
Links to check out:
Minimalist Food: One Bowl Eating
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