The choices we make before and during eating food, and the ways in which we engage with it can be crucial to our health.What our meals look and smell like, whether we eat them with forks or fingers – even the music we’re listening to while eating or food shopping can all play a role in how healthily we eat. The following techniques will help you “trick” your brain into making better decisions for your body.

How We Eat Matters

Anything you can do to pay more attention and eat more slowly, to be more mindful in the moment, will likely enhance the sensations associated with eating and mean that you are satisfied with less. Not only will this affect satiety, it could also help you make healthier choices – and enjoy those choices more. If it’s true that 75%-95% of what we taste, we really smell, then the aroma is really important. Yet many of our food behaviours are not optimised for that. If you’re drinking coffee from a takeaway cup with a lid, you’re missing a key part of the experience.

Make Eating as Sensory an Experience as Possible

People will drink about 30% more if the music is fast and loud. There is emerging evidence to suggest loud noises trigger less healthy food behaviours which might be because there’s so much noise, you can’t really taste what you’re eating. Genre matters too: listening to jazz and classical music increases people’s preferences for healthy savoury foods more than American rock, for example, which leads us more towards burger and chips; something to bear in mind if you’re listening to music while shopping.

Choose Your Music Carefully – and Turn Down the Volume

There’s a reason the first bite of a chocolate bar tastes better than subsequent bites; the first bite is novel, then our taste buds become habituated. Even when the flavour of each bite or slurp is slightly different, if it looks the same our brain tends to assume that the taste also remains the same. The flipside of that is that we can use this reaction to our advantage and reduce the quantity of unhealthy food we consume by packing as much of it as possible into that first mouthful. This is harder to do at home but it is coming into play in the design of readymade foods.

Front Load Your First Mouthful

We eat first with our eyes, and that dictates much of our experience. Indeed, by shaping our expectations, the appearance of foods has even been shown to influence what we taste when we eat them; so a big, beautiful salad boasting a variety of leaves and colours and textures won’t just look better than a handful of spinach; it will taste better, too. We should also remember that we eat with our eyes when it comes to premade food, particularly when it’s something asymmetrical (or without a uniform appearance).

Cook – and Eat – with Your Eyes

It is true that we tend to eat more in the company of others but one doesn’t want to recommend eating alone at least, not habitually. There are ways to enhance the sensory experience of a communal meal and encourage diners to focus on the food as well as the conversation. One is to get people involved in the process: serving up in dishes so they can help themselves or encouraging them to customise their plate with, say, herbs or seasonings. It elicits the so-called Ikea effect. They feel ownership for what they’re eating

Make Shared Meals as Engaging and Memorable as Possible

Many of us now know that serving meals on a smaller plate can control how much we eat, because our brains believe there to be more food there than there actually is. This has a profound effect on satiety (how full you feel), yet the brain can also be fooled by the tools we use: heavier cutlery enhances our appreciation of it, as does eating with our hands, which engages our senses and makes us more mindful.

Use Heavier Cutlery or – Better Still – No Cutlery at All

Ditching the cutlery, scoffing a big first bite and discussing the carrots can help rewire our brains and make us more mindful of our meals

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Food

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Health

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Habits

How to trick your brain into better eating habits

<h3>Noom is a buzzy weight loss app targeted at young people.</h3> Noom helps you learn how to get in touch with your body and teach yourself not to crave foods that don’t nourish you. Noom's key differentiator is applying psychology to achieve long-term weight loss. But critics say Noom is a deceptive gateway to disordered eating at worst.

Noom - a diet app

The fight between Noom and its critics is part of a larger cultural war of the last decade over how we should think about food, weight, bodies, and health. On one side is the traditional diet culture which holds that weight is a crucial indicator of health. The idea is that if you simply wield a little willpower and use more calories than you take in, you will lose weight. On the other side are the rising anti-diet movements. They hold that the correlation between weight and health is not straightforward and that most diets don't last and damage your metabolism in the long run.

The diet culture war

Anti-dieters argue that dieting can damage the very bodies it promises to heal. <ul><li>Dieting slows the metabolism.</li><li>Frequent dieting is associated with higher mortality rates and increase the risk of death by heart disease in people with coronary artery disease.</li><li>It can damage the mind. Frequent dieting is associated with high rates of depression.</li><li>Dieters can become overwhelmingly fixated on food.</li><li>The boundaries between dieting and eating disorders can become interchanged.</li></ul>

The downsides of diets

<ul><li>Mindful eating is paying close attention to the food you eat and your body’s response to it.</li><li>Intuitive eating is the practice of rejecting all food rules and allowing your body to guide your eating. </li><li>Health at Every Size is the movement that argues that it’s possible to live a healthy life no matter what your weight is.</li></ul>

New ways of thinking about food

At the centre of the anti-diet movement are two scientific claims. <ol><li>The relationship between weight and overall health is unclear. It’s possible to be a healthy fat person and an unhealthy thin person.</li><li>Dieters end up gaining back all the weight they lost.</li></ol> The data on the first claim shows it to be mostly true. A 2014 meta-analysis showed that 6 % - 75 % of those classified as obese were “metabolically healthy.” Studies on the second claim show that it is very rare for dieters to lose weight and maintain that weight loss.

The anti-diet movement has been around since the 1960’s

Noom celebrates No Diet Day on Instagram but in practice, it works like a classic low-calorie diet. After registering, users are asked to set a goal weight and decide how quickly they want to lose weight. Noom will generate a daily calorie budget that users are expected to follow, and it instructs users to log their food. Noom philosophy stated that no foods are off-limits, but it does give users a way to classify their foods. Green foods in large quantities, yellow foods in moderation, and red foods such as desserts and chips are limited.

Critics insist that Noom is just another diet app

Noom is a diet app in an anti-diet moment.

The Noom paradox

The impact of food on health is 80 percent and exercise 20 percent. While the composition of a healthy diet can vary, there are common factors. Good health is associated with eating mostly plants. The emphasis is on whole, unprocessed foods and limiting refined carbohydrates, added sugars and processed foods.

The basis of a good diet

<ol><li>Carbohydrates is your main energy source, fuelling the body and brain, protecting our muscles and feeding bacteria in the gut. Healthy carbohydrates are whole grains, vegies and fruit.</li><li>Proteins build and repair our body tissues, make enzymes and hormones, build muscle, bone, cartilage, skin and blood. Protein-rich foods include, meat, chicken, fish, tofu, eggs, dairy, nuts, beans and legumes.</li><li>Fats are vital to help absorb vitamins A, D, E and K, help regulate hormones and provide energy. Fats are found in meat, fish, chicken, dairy, oils, nuts and seeds.</li></ol>

We need three macronutrients

<ul><li>Iron helps to transport oxygen through the body. Found in red meat, chicken, fish, grains, veges and legumes.</li><li>Vitamin A is essential for vision, the immune system, skin, and growth. It is found in liver, oily fish, milk, egg yolk and cheese.</li><li>Iodine helps to make thyroid hormones. Found in seafood and seaweed.</li><li>Vitamin C is vital for healthy teeth and bones, wound healing, infection resistance, absorbing iron. Found in fruits and veges.</li><li>Calcium builds bones, helps blood clot, muscles contract and regulates blood pressure. Found in dairy, sesame seeds, nuts, sardines, and dark green veges.</li></ul>

Important micronutrients

Every meal ideally consists of:<ul><li>Half a plate of colourful, non-starchy vegetables and/or fruit.</li><li>A quarter of a plate of carbohydrate food</li><li>A quarter of a plate of protein food.</li></ul> This model applies to simple meals and mixed meals like pasta or stir-fried dishes. It doesn't really matter when we eat, as long as we get the nutrition we need.

The ideal plate model for every meal

If you're exercising first thing in the morning, you may be better off not eating. But ensure you get a meal within two hours after your workout that contains carbs and protein. If you're working out later in the day or evening, ensure you eat a meal with carbs and protein three to four hours before and two hours after your workout. Hydration is essential to keep us well. So ensure you stay hydrated with water as your main drink.

Diet and exercise

What you eat is more important than how you eat or how often you exercise.

Find out the macronutrients &amp; micronutrients your body needs, the ideal mix of carbohydrates, protein &amp; fat and the best times to eat pre- &amp; post- exercise. 

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Exercise & Fitness

Nutrition basics to support your workout regime – Fit Planet

Using terms unfamiliar to your readers or audience can seem noninclusive and even divisive. It's as if a manager is saying: "I know things. You don't know things."Any communication rife with buzzwords can also come across as disingenuous. What strategy isn't "results-oriented"? When announcing a layoff, no one will be fooled by a memo about "eliminating redundancy." Responding to an employee concern with "We don't have the bandwidth" will be heard as a buzzy, evasive dismissal.

Jargon Is Bad And Divisive

A study by Ohio State University researchers found that people were less interested and informed after reading jargon-filled samples—even when terms were defined—than another group reading a plain-language version. When staff glaze over stuffy or pretentious language, managers miss the opportunity to convey their message.
Buzzwords can be the result of laziness. It may be easier to drop a hackneyed term like "synergy" or "value chain" rather than explaining what you mean. But you can improve an empty phrase by adding specifics and nuance.

Buzzwords Are Missed Opportunities

Jargons are overused terms that make people roll their eyes, tune out, wince or nod off.
Some common words and phrases: "Shift the paradigm." Take a "solution-oriented approach." "Empower your brand" "agile," "actionable" or "the new normal."
Call it corporate speak or business lingo, jargon is ubiquitous in leadership presentations, memos and blogs in every industry. Yet it's counterproductive, especially for managers whose effectiveness depends on being accessible, persuasive and inspiring to employees.

Jargon At The Workplace

A presentation to employees that they don't understand or that is packed with meaningless phrases is a communication failure. Using big words does not make you sound smarter, either. In fact, it usually has the opposite effect. You build credibility by connecting with your audience, not by trying to elevate yourself through fancy terms.

Big Words, Losing Ways

<ul><li>Watch or review your previous presentations, blogs and memos. </li><li>Engage your readers, don't write at them. This means talking in their language. Choose words like "thinking," not "ideation." Call it a "report," not a "deliverable."</li><li>Make text easy to scan. Fillers and puffy language get in the way.</li><li>Avoid acronyms by spelling them out. Discuss KPI with your executive team, but be aware that other staffers may not know that you mean key performance indicators.</li></ul>Remember that "blue sky thinking" will not take you to "where the rubber meets the road."

Kick The Jargon Habit

Call it corporate speak or business lingo, jargon is ubiquitous in leadership presentations, memos and blogs in every industry. Yet it’s counterproductive, especially for managers. 

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Career

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Corporate Culture

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Communication

Jargon: It Creates a Wall Between Managers and Employees 

Renee pointed out two differentiating factors she and her San Francisco startup are betting on:&nbsp;<ul><li>Castbox works on any web, mobile, or voice platform, including Amazon’s Echo, Google Home, Android auto, and iOS Carplay.</li><li>Castbox is the only platform with In-Audio search. The company launched in October 2017.</li></ul>

How is CastBox different from other podcasting apps?

<ul><li>What can you do that will give you a sense of achievement and self-esteem? For Renee, it was coding. Find something you’re good at and become even better. Use it to help people (e.g., friends stuck on a project) and you may find a happier version of yourself.</li><li>Attention equals money. Renee knew she had found product-market fit when users were spending a half-hour a day in her app.&nbsp;</li><li>Think outside the normal stuff: owning a house is not as important as becoming who you are meant to be.</li></ul>

3 Key Takeaways from Renee’s Story:

She didn't speak a word of English, a requirement for all Google employees. She quit a second job at a mobile ANALYTICS startup to prepare for the interview. She applied for three jobs at a time, turning down offers from Baidu, Tencent, and other top tech companies in China. When she finally got through Google(after several misses) she accepted and departed her job at Oracle in less than 24 hours.

Google

After college, she saw how introverted she was. So she challenged herself by joining a company with a poor reputation as a salesperson. Most of her friends joined technology companies. She sold educational consulting services that helped students prepare for significant exams like the SAT and GMAT. She earned $200/month.

After college

Renee Wang was born as an only child during China’s one-child-per-family policy, a.k.a. the ‘loneliest generation'. At 12, she attended a boarding school in the rural countryside outside Beijing with 75 kids in each classroom, showers once a month, and no phones. This is her story on how she battled odds to become a successful entrepreneur.

The Loneliest Generation

Despite a growing sense of isolation, Renee had the highest scores in the class. She "solved the problem" of isolation by politicking her way into the graces of the three social circles. She won over the rough-and-tumble mafia gang members, tutored the good students, and protected the Misfits.

Battling Depression

The more she did it, the more she found she was good at programming and enjoyed it. During her junior and senior years in college, she started a company that built CRMs and ERPs for clients.

Code

At the Google Japan office, her commute was an hour each way. As a person who is “obsessive about productivity”, she used the time to listen to spoken audio and practice her English and Japanese.“It took me just as long to find good audio content as it did to listen to it,” she said. “It took hours.”Itching to get back to coding, she quit her job in 2015 to fix this problem; to build a platform that made audio content easier to search.

The idea for CastBox

With advancements in natural language processing, voice tech is surging. Some of Renee’s predictions surprised me.&nbsp;<ul><li>Get ready to have Alexa, or a cousin from another company, in your car.&nbsp;</li><li>By 2020, we’ll be consuming 10x more data compared to 2017.&nbsp;</li><li>Soon, we’ll be talking to the internet just as much as we type into it.&nbsp;</li><li>In-audio search won’t rely on Podcast Subscriptions, just search.</li></ul>

Predictions for the future of audio

A lot remains to be seen with the young audio startup, but as one of the most ambitious female founders I’ve met, Renee’s stoic tenacity may be the ticket needed to capitalize on the current podcasting wave sweeping the digisphere.

The Future

Renee Wang was born as an only child during China’s one-child-per-family policy, a.k.a. the ‘loneliest generation,’ according to The Guardian. At 12, she attended a boarding school in the rural…

How to trick your brain into better eating habits

The Noom paradox

Nutrition basics to support your workout regime – Fit Planet

It's time to
Read like a Pro.

Jargon: It Creates a Wall Between Managers and Employees

CURATED BY

How to trick your brain into better eating habits

The Noom paradox

Nutrition basics to support your workout regime – Fit Planet

It's time to Read like a Pro.

Jargon: It Creates a Wall Between Managers and Employees

CURATED BY

It's time to
Read like a Pro.