Are Your Eyes Bigger Than Your Stomach?

Researchers call it "mindless eating." You call it sitting down with a bag of chips, and 20 minutes later find yourself licking the crumbs off your fingertips.

Mindless eating is obviously a big reason for a big waist, and now researchers have come up with some thoughts about how you can go to war against thoughtless munching.

The study comes out of the American Psychological Association, and one of the questions they asked was: "How do you know when you're done with dinner?"

When they asked 150 people from Paris, the answer was " when we are full." The same question to a group of people from Chicago was answered with "when the plate is empty."

The implication is obvious. You need to take a look at portion size, and a way to cheat the system.

1. Small Plate

2. Smaller cereal bowls

3. Taller, thinner glasses, rather than short, wider drinking glasses.

4. Keep the junk food out of the house, and if you can't do that ...

5. When you're sitting around watching the tube and needing a munchy, pre-fill a small bowl -- and don't eat straight out of the bag (which you should put back in the closet.)

Sounds like simple advice. Too simple in many ways. But consider these points from the study:

People who ate soup from bowls that automatically refilled from the bottom (without the slurpers noticing) kept on eating the soup until they were nauseous. They didn't know when to stop!

Also, when people were given small bags of fresh popcorn, that's what they ate. When others were given gigantic bags filled with old, stale musty popcorn -- they kept on eating until the bag was empty, even though they were eating garbage.

It's not easy, but it may be time to get your eyes a pair of eating glasses to keep your keep your stomach satisfied, but not exploding. Thoughtless eating is worthless eating.