Jean Nidetch Quotes

When I have dinner, I get off my phone, smell my food, and chew it well.

Never eat while doing something else, because you won't get the satisfaction from your food and you'll be more likely to overeat.

If you slow it down, eat in courses, your body, mind, stomach will catch up with this full feeling and you won't eat as much.

If we don't focus on when we eat - like, let's say we watch television or something - you eat much more. If you focus on the food - you smell it, you cook it - you're enjoying it already.

Kids don't eat fast. They take their time; they talk and laugh. Sometimes it's really annoying, because you're like, 'Come on, it's bedtime!' But try it: You'll fill up before you know it, because it takes 20 minutes for your brain to know your stomach is full.

Too many people just eat to consume calories. Try dining for a change.

You have to watch what you eat.

Don't even wait until you've lost a pound. The minute you can push the plate away with food still on it, give yourself a pat on the back.

Eat as much as you like - just don't swallow it.

Reminded of what a diet really is, I began eating more slowly, being more conscious of when I was full. I started to enjoy my buckwheat bread with goat cheese and pureed butternut-squash soup as a response to real hunger.

Since the pleasure of most foods is in the first few bites, eat one thing on your plate at a time, at least at the start of the meal when you can concentrate and enjoy the full flavors.

When I ate slowly and deliberately, giving myself time to consider whether I actually wanted that next bite, I often discovered that I didn't.

There's a very passionate pro-chewing movement on the Internet called Chewdiasm. They say that we should be chewing 50 to 100 times per mouthful, which is insane. I tried that. It takes like a day and a half to eat a sandwich. But their basic idea is right. If you chew, you'll eat slower and you will get more nutrients.

I don't snack a lot, because I didn't grow up snacking.

When you realize the real pleasure in food comes in the first couple bites, and it diminishes thereafter, that's a kind of reminder to focus on the experience, enjoy those first bites, and as you get into the 20th bite, you're talking calories and not pleasure.

I'm not good at eating small meals. Some people can sit down and be very disciplined. When I sit down at a meal, I sort of eat everything I can reach. I know medical people say that's exactly the wrong formula, but I've made it this far.

I have found that most meal plans will work, simply because it causes us to become more aware as we eat.

I love food, so having a lot of food allergies now and just having a really sensitive body, it forces me to be very mindful and conscious and eat when I'm hungry, not just when I'm bored, and just really slow down. Everything in moderation.

I eat exactly three times a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. I sit quietly for 20 minutes without anybody disturbing me, and I chew each mouthful 60 times.

I wolf food down like you've never seen. For some reason, I have no self-control when it comes to the pace of eating.

Always chew on your pretzels before you swallow.

Eating is a natural way to feel happy. Overeating isn't.

There are no bad foods, only bad food habits.

And I find chopsticks frankly distressing. Am I alone in thinking it odd that a people ingenious enough to invent paper, gunpowder, kites and any number of other useful objects, and who have a noble history extending back 3,000 years haven't yet worked out that a pair of knitting needles is no way to capture food?