Make Lunch, Not Dinner, the Biggest Meal of the Day (Europe and Mexico)
Americans tend to skip breakfast, eat a light lunch, and save all their serous eating for the nighttime hours. But having a big meal shortly before bedtime doesn’t do our metabolism any favors; on the contrary, any extra calories we ingest at that hour get stored as fat. Rather than consuming the bulk of your calories in the evening, start the day with a light, sensible breakfast and treat yourself to a hearty lunch, followed by a light dinner, as people do in most Latin and European countries. That way, you’ll maximize your body’s fat-burning potential and wake up hungry, ready to supercharge your system with a morning meal.

Eat Slowly and Enjoy Yourself (France)
A mere 28 percent of American families eat together each night, compared with 92 percent of French families. Taking time to relish one another’s company over a nutritious, drawn-out meal is good for both the soul and the body: not only will you bond with your loved ones, but you’ll also experience fullness earlier and therefore consume fewer calories. Make dinnertime a family affair to look forward to—not just something you squeeze in between work and TV time—and you’ll see the results reflected in your scale.

Stop Eating Before You’re Full (Japan)
The Okinawans have perfected a calorie-control system that they call hara hachi bu: it means eating until you’re only 80 percent full. The logic behind this tactic is that habitually eating until you’re extremely full will cause your stomach to stretch and therefore require greater quantities of food to achieve satisfaction. By learning to leave the table at the moment when the first inklings of fullness creep in, you’ll keep your total daily caloric consumption to a minimum. Suspicious? The Okinawans are reaping the rewards of this practice: their average body mass index is only 21.5, as opposed to American adults’ 28.

Incorporate More Fish into Your Diet (Japan and the Netherlands)
The Japanese eat more fish than any other country, but people in the Netherlands are no strangers to seafood, either—in fact, the Dutch consume an average of eighty-five million raw herring per year. Fish contains high concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids that enhance brain function, improve cardiovascular health, and reduce levels of the stress hormone cortisol, which has been proven to increase abdominal fat deposits. And because most seafood is low-fat and low-calorie, you can fill up on it without packing on pounds.

Bon Appétit!
Losing weight and maintaining a trim physique don’t necessitate all of the extreme lengths to which Americans go; you don’t have to starve yourself, skip meals, drink only lemon- and cayenne-spiked water for ten days, or spend six hours each day at the gym to slim down. What you do need to do is become a more balanced, more conscious observer of your own intake—someone who knows that it’s actually a good thing to indulge in a piece of rich dark chocolate or a glass of robust red wine, but who simultaneously doesn’t overindulge by following those items with an entire sleeve of cookies or three more drinks. By striving to emulate the sound culinary practices of these other countries, where people enjoy eating to the fullest but not till they’re uncomfortably full, we stand to gain only knowledge and good health—not weight.

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