How Do I Deal With Feeling Out Of Place At Parties? Right Now I Just Eat.

February 1, 2009 -- Question: How do I deal with feeling out of place at parties? Right now I just eat.

Answer: Going to parties and social events can be a real minefield, filled with opportunities to misbehave, if you will. Other people are serving food, hosts and hostesses want you to eat their food, other people are eating, other people are drinking and of course there are a lot of calories in the alcohol. The trick to navigating this is to follow a few simple rules.

One is to eat something low calorie in advance of going, so you're not hungry when you get there.

Second is to drink a lot of fluid, because sometimes that can take the edge off of hunger. And of course, non-caloric fluid will be best in this case.

The other thing is to eat small amounts of things and to eat them slowly, so you're still part of the overall eating scene, but you're eating under control.

And it's important to remember under these circumstances that we very often lose a lot of pleasure from food the more we eat of it. So, the first few bites of something are usually pretty pleasurable, but then the desire we feel for the food goes down over time. And so eating small amounts and eating slowly can bring you almost all the pleasure of eating out of control, with only a fraction of the calories.