Mindless Eating

I got a book at the library yesterday called Mindless Eating. It is very interesting.
(It also recommends the Volumetrics book, which was recommended by the author of the Healthy Skeptic which I was reading before.)
What is interesting is that we in America tend to base our eating more on outside cues than on an inner feeling of either fullness or being no longer hungry. The author has done lots of research, which the book details nicely.
I think that if I paid attention to it, it could change my eating habits all together. Most people don't eat until they feel a little full (and then it would be really full after 20 minutes when all the food has gotten where it needs to go to make you feel full), they eat until the plate is clean, or the bowl is empty. Or, if in front of the television with a bag of chips, the bag is empty, or the box of crackers, or the pint of ice cream. I know that I eat whenever I am bored, or want something that tastes good.
Someone he quoted in the book said that he lost a lot of weight by saying when he was about to eat something but was not really hungry, "I am not hungry but I am going to eat this anyway." and that usually helped him to rethink and decide against whatever he was going to eat.
We can trick ourselves into eating less by using smaller plates, bowls, or taller glasses. Since our stomachs are not usually in control of how much we eat, but our eyes are, we can trick our eyes to see more food than there really is. We do tend to fill up the plate or bowl and have a certain According to Volumetrics, we can fill up our plates with lower energy density foods, like I mentioned in a previous post, so we feel that we are still eating the amount we think will fill us up.
What I appreciated the most today was that when I was eating lunch, I attuned not to my bowl and how much was there, but to my stomach and I stopped when I was satisfied. Knowing I was satisfied made me feel not at all denied, or that I was purposely undereating, but that I was taking care of myself. Hmmmm.
Mind changing.