I normally don’t suggest things I haven’t tried for long, but I’m too encouraged by the results to let this pass without comment. A few days ago I had lunch at Phillippe in downtown Los Angeles (the best sandwich shop in God’s country). Whenever I eat there, my self-discipline invariably goes out the window, and I find myself devouring enough to regret it immediately afterwards.
I ordered my usual French Dip, a bowl of clam chowder and a slice of chocolate cream pie. As soon as I set the tray down on the table, I found myself looking at the volume of food I was about to eat with different eyes. My intuition was raising a red flag against the act of hyperconsumption I was about to commit.
Staring at the food for a moment longer, a question suddenly came to mind.
What 20% of this would give me 80% of the satisfaction?
I wound up eating perhaps more than 20%, but well below half. I ate the full (small) bowl of clam chowder, less than half of the sandwich, and four forkfulls of the pie. I put the rest in a box, and repeated the process at home. It took me four days to finish a meal that I would have ordinarily pounded away in one sitting.
I’ve started doing this with everything I eat and drink now, and I not only have more energy when I’m finished, but the act of eating is more enjoyable. It’s not the mathematical proportion that matters. 80/20 is an arbitrary ratio in this context, and could just as easily be 50/50 or 90/10. What matter is the fact that I’m forced to pay attention to what I’m eating in relation to a standard of fulfillment, not consumption.
Like most Americans, I was raised to finish everything on my plate. This ethic carries a number of unexamined assumptions:
- Everything on a plate is worth eating
- The size of the plate is appropriate to the amount of food we actually need
- The plate needs to be loaded
- Food left on the plate is “wasted,” as opposed to turning to excess fat if eaten
- “Full” meals are served on plates, as opposed to bowls, skewers or napkins
The 20% Not-to-Eat list
While I’ve only been applying the Pareto (80/20) principle to individual meals for less than a week, I’ve had more experience with a different application. Last December, I decided to lose some weight. Being too lazy to maintain a real diet, I asked myself, “What are the 20% of foods that are causing 80% of my excess weight?”
It took about three minutes to realize that they fell into two categories: candy and pastries. I was surprised by how simple it was to drop these from my eating routine (Phillipe being the one and only exception), since I usually ate them to alleviate boredom anyway. Sometimes resisting the urge took a little emotional effort, but the alternative of counting calories or carbs would have taken much more. I always prefer making things easier before applying more effort.
Within two days, I noticed that my stomach no longer exerted pressure against my belt, and within two weeks, I noticed that I had to keep pulling my pants up. In six weeks I lost 11 pounds, with nothing to analyze or track.
The great thing about 80/20 analyses is that they apply at any level. If you’ve already eliminated candy and pastries, your 20% might be dairy products and meat. Whatever it is, it’s usually something that’s obvious once you focus on it as an issue.
Technorati Tags: Thinking Operations, Diet
4 responses so far ↓
1 jkahan
// Jun 27, 2008 at 11:25 pm
Even if you just cut 20% off of your normal portion size, without analyzing which food is most fattening, you will at a minimum be cutting your normal caloric intake by 20%. Even if this does not show a significant improvement, it will still be improvement none the less.
An easy way to look at it; leave 20% of what is on your plate there. If you can’t get over the “wasted food/starving children in Africa” American guilt, then get the remainder to go and give it to a homeless person.
2 wirehead
// Jun 28, 2008 at 12:02 am
Hrm, I have been unable to manage to lose weight by cutting foods out of my diet… but the idea of eating the 20-50% of the plate that will make you feel full and content has paid off well.
The way I see things, the best way to counter the usual American plate-clearing habit is to make ruthless use of the fridge. The cafeteria at work has a pasta plate. I can easily finish off the whole plate and then get the munchies around four. Or I can keep about 25-50% of the food for around four when I’ll get the munchies regardless… and then I’ll have maybe a handful of food at dinnertime.
3 vered
// Jun 29, 2008 at 4:52 am
“What matter is the fact that I’m forced to pay attention to what I’m eating in relation to a standard of fulfillment, not consumption.” This is a brilliant observation, and can work in other areas as well - i.e., excessive or recreational shopping.
4 Andre
// Jul 2, 2008 at 5:37 am
@jkahan: True, any reduction is an improvement. I should stress the the 80/20 ratio is arbitrary. When you eat out, at least in the US, the portions that are served are usually large enough to make eating a much smaller portion of them realistic. At home, we tend to serve ourselves portions much closer to what we have an appetite for, so your 20% reduction makes more sense.
@wirehead: Totally agree with the refrigerator suggestion. It’s only recently that I’ve gotten over myself and started reheating stuff. I’ve gone three or four days on what I used to woof down in one sitting.
@vered: It definitely generalizes to other areas. Consumption of any kind is ripe for self-examination.
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