Last month, I shared the first in a series of super easy changes you can make to help lose weight: drink 16oz of water, 30 minutes before each meal.  In one study, over the course of 12 weeks, that one change was enough to help participants lose an average of 10.5 pounds.

Small, but powerful.  So let’s keep it going, with this month’s simple but effective habit!  Which is:

Use a smaller plate.

Thanks to something called the Delboeuf Illusion, your brain perceives the size of a thing in comparison to its surroundings.  As a result, people tend to use the size of their plate as an unconscious cue as they pile on food, covering, say, 2/3 of any given plate as what seems like a reasonable serving.  Thus, when you use smaller plates, you end up serving yourself less by default.  According to one study from Cornell and Georgia Tech, moving from a 12-inch plate to a 10-inch plate led people to serve themselves 22% fewer calories.  Do that just at dinners over the course of a year, and you’ll lose about 10 pounds!

That’s it.  So now you’re up to two habits: drink a big glass of water a half hour before each meal, and then eat those meals on slightly smaller plates.  Crazy enough, those alone should start to make a real difference over the next month.  Tune in four weeks from now for dumb but impactful KISS habit number three!