The Law of Diminishing Enjoyment...
When we slow down, focus and eat mindfully, we are able to be satisfied with a smaller amount of foods that can sometimes be easy to overeat – like chips and chocolate.
Learning moderation requires the food to be in your diet in the first place. Leaving things off limits creates more difficulty with portion control.
Essentially when eating foods for pleasure not nutrition we should use the idea of enjoyment (or lack of) as a guide for when to stop. This works for most foods – some are very bland of course – they would require stricter decisions on how much to eat before you start eating. The idea is stop when you notice you are no longer enjoying the food as much as you were with the first mouthful.
It’s always helpful to avoid having indulgent foods when you are actually hungry, or in response to an emotion.
To do this exercise, make sure you are eating sitting down, off a plate and without any other distractions – this will also help strengthen your mindfulness when eating.