Number of words: 142

Is your kitchen too cosy? Low lighting encourages us to overeat, because it makes us too relaxed. Making the kitchen the hub of the house can also cause problems because one of the main stimulants to overeating is the sight and smell of food. The more time you spend in the kitchen – socialising or working at the kitchen table – the more likely you are to overeat. If you can’t bear to decamp from the kitchen, you can at least Wendy-House the utensils. It’s a simple but highly effective ruse. Restaurant studies show that we consume significantly more when given big portions. Just swapping your kitchenware for smaller crockery and cutlery can fool your brain into believing that you are eating more than you are.

Excerpted from pages 73 of Enough: breaking free from the world of excess by John Naish