Brian Wansink > Quotes

“The best diet is the one you don't know you're on.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“There's only one thing that's strong enough to defeat the tyranny of the moment. Habit.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Suppose you found yourself two miles from home without a ride. Although you could get home three times faster if you ran, most people would settle for walking. Running wouldn’t be worth the sweat and discomfort, and walking will get you there at a reasonable and painless rate. Each step brings you a little closer, and before you know it, you are halfway home and still moving forward.

It’s the same with mindlessly losing weight. It need not be a sweaty, painful sprint. It can be a slow, steady walk that begins with removing unwanted eating cues and rearranging your home, office, and eating habits so they work for you and your family rather than against you. These comfortable steps will add up—one or two pounds a month. Before long you’ll find yourself at home.

The best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“People eat more when you give them a bigger container. Period.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“In other words, volume trumps calories. We eat the volume we want, not the calories we want.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“As long as we believe it is food that causes us to overeat, we are lost. Television, friends, and weather seem pretty unrelated to what we eat. That’s why they have such a powerful effect on us.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“In one study, people who listened to a lunchtime radio mystery show ate 15 percent more than those who didn’t. The basic rule: distractions of all kinds make us eat, forget how much we eat, and extend how long we eat—even when we’re not hungry.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“the idea of eating better is do-able. While eating right is a long-term goal, eating better is something we can start today.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Even though I was appointed by the White House to be executive director of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s agency in charge of the 2010 United States Dietary Guidelines, and even though I am a past president of the Society for Nutrition Education and Behavior, I still don’t think most nutrition education is very effective. People know that an apple is better for them than a Snickers bar, but . . . they eat the Snickers bar anyway.”
― Brian Wansink, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life

“Is It Baby Fat or Real Fat? The answer partly depends on the parents. A study of 854 Washington State children under three years old showed that a child is nearly three times as likely to grow up obese if one of his parents is obese. If you’re overweight, your child has a 65–75 percent chance of growing up to be overweight. So, is that little paunch on your fourth grader baby fat? Not if you’re sporting the same paunch.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“If a wave of veganism washed over the land, in six months there would be Broccoli Kings, Taco Bell Peppers, and McTofu Drive-Thrus.”
― Brian Wansink, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life

“People were almost twice as likely to reach for a comfort food when they were happy than when they were sad.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“It’s about as close to an established fact as things get in the social sciences: People who watch a lot of TV are more likely to be overweight than people who don’t.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“The best diet is the one you don’t know you’re on.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“We can turn the food in our life from being a temptation or a regret to something we guiltlessly enjoy. We can move from mindless overeating to mindless better eating.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Serving sizes start to make sense only when foods are individually packaged.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Beware of the health halo. The better the food, the worse the extras. People eating ‘low-fat’ granola ate 21 percent more calories, and those eating ‘healthy’ at Subway rewarded themselves by ordering cheese, mayo, chips, and cookies. Who really overeats—the guy who knows he’s eating 710 calories at McDonald’s, or the woman who thinks she’s eating a 350-calorie Subway meal that actually contains 500 calories?”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Yet the heavier a person was—American or French—the more they relied on external cues to tell them when to stop eating and the less they relied on whether they felt full.13”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Hearing "can't" dares a person to find a workaround. It's a basic psychological theory called reactance - telling someone "no" just makes them want it more.”
― Brian Wansink, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life

“Just as we can’t tell how much we’ve eaten simply by relying on internal cues, we can’t really tell how much we’ve gained or lost without some external benchmark.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“There’s only one thing that’s strong enough to defeat the tyranny of the moment. Habit.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“(In fact, “diet” comes from a Latin word which means “a way of life.”)”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“The beauty of impulse eating may be that you end up eating less—when you do eat—than someone who has been thinking about the food for hours. The more you think of something, the more of it you’ll eat.5”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Big dishes and big spoons are big trouble. As the size of our dishes increases, so does the amount we scoop onto them. They cause us to serve ourselves more because they make the food look so small.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“While eating right is a long-term goal, eating better is something we can start today. Eating better entails small steps.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“The tendency to use a clock to tell yourself when you’re hungry seems to be especially strong for people who are overweight.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“Your Mindless Margin. By making 100–200 calorie changes in your daily intake, you won’t feel deprived and backslide. • Mindless Better Eating. Focus on reengineering small behaviors that will move you from mindless overeating to mindless better eating. Five common places to look (diet danger zones) include meals, snacks, parties, restaurants, and your desk or dashboard. • Mindful Reengineering. To trim your mindless margin, you can use basic diet tips, but a more personalized approach is to use 1) food trade-offs, or 2) food policies. Both give you a chance to eat some of what you want without making it a belabored decision. • The Power of Three. Design three easy, do-able changes that you can mindlessly make without much sacrifice. • Mindless Margin Checklist. Use this daily checklist to help you move from mindless overeating to mindless better eating.”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“At high levels, all of us—normal weight and overweight alike—underestimate calorie levels with mathematical predictability.16”
― Brian Wansink, Mindless Eating: Why We Eat More Than We Think

“It Isn't nutrition until it's eaten.”
― Brian Wansink, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life

“The consequences of not serving chocolate milk are that many don’t drink milk at all. We discovered that when eleven Oregon schools banned chocolate milk, 10 percent fewer kids drank milk, 29 percent more of the white milk taken was thrown away, and 7 percent fewer kids ate school lunches.”
― Brian Wansink, Slim by Design: Mindless Eating Solutions for Everyday Life