It’s mid February. The jeans have that just-out-of-the-dryer feel at the END of the day. It takes an extra tug and twirl to remove the pinky ring. And a winch and a tow truck would come in handy to pry the new boots off. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
You did your homework, planned meals and made grocery lists, added suspiciously yucky smoothies to your week, drank enough water to float a barge and trudged through hurricane winds to get your steps in. Swimsuit season will be late if it appears at all, and you’ll blame El Nino.
Whoa, there! Maybe what you are lacking is simply a bit more color in your life! Shuffle the dishes in the cabinet so the more colorful ones get grabbed first. Don’t go for coordination but contrast when plating your food. Your eye will automatically limit portions since studies show that we put more on our plates when the food and the plate are the same color. (Yes, there are people who actually study these things). If you decide to invest in some new place settings or colorful paper-ware, go for blue, since that color clashes with most of Mother Nature’s buffet. Go orange, though, when eating that blueberry-topped cheesecake if you go that route to get your daily antioxidants.
While you are at it, grab the colorful SMALLER plate. These researchers say we don’t feel deprived when dieting…hmm…making lifestyle changes…if we opt for the 10-inch plate vs. the 12-inch one. So size matters, and could lead to a 10-pound weight loss over the course of a year if that were the only thing changed. (I would like to meet the researcher who had the time and control to do THIS study).
Get a paintbrush and go purple in your bedroom. Yep, more research. It shows that purple helps us sleep better, and if we sleep better our food choices get more balanced. We tend to crave sugars and bad carbs if we don’t get enough zzz’s. I briefly went through a lilac phase in my teens, so not sure I want to go this route again. Maybe a purple pillow or footies will suffice.
Avoid yellows and reds in the kitchen. Researchers have been at this a long time before they clued us in. Think about all the fast food establishments that lure us with this color scheme. There’s a reason they’re NOT called the turquoise arches.
This first appeared in The Prospect-News on 02/17/16. It is the local weekly paper in Doniphan, MO. It was also the basis for a speech I presented to Poplar Bluff Toastmaster on 02/10/16.
