Most of us at one point or another in our lives have sat in front of a television and ate a couple of munchies or have had full fledged meals.  It's not unheard of by any means, and with a more hectic life, it's a great chance to sit down, relax and at the same time do something necessary; eat.  All this information sounds very no brainer, and it seems like a waste of time to delve any deeper right?  Well, not exactly.  Instead of quoting fancy studies like most fitness camps do, I'm just going to straight flat out reason why I think this is terrible for your health and general weight.  Before I begin though, I'll start off by saying that at all the fitness camps that I've been to, the same thing is repeated.  Do not eat and watch tv.  In fact it is said up to a point by some fitness camp experts that you shouldn't even watch more than one hour of TV a day; their reasoning being that the more time you spend on your duff, the less time you spend walking, exercising or moving around on your feet. This sounds pretty reasonable. Of course there are many of us that like to watch TV as a distraction from being on a treadmill or something of the like, but the objection that experts at fitness camps always touch on.  Don't eat and watch TV. Much to my chagrin, I must admit that I settled for the sitting down theory and didn't question it further. It has, however, recently come to my attention, that for another very good reason, you should not eat and watch TV.

As I was saying, this did not come to my attention via some health or weight loss study, but rather it came to me by reasoning it out.  I was sitting down in front of my television, and I sat down with some food.  Normall, like clockwork, I would turn the television on and begin to chow down. Today, this wasn't the case.  When I sat down I realized that I hadn't gone for the remote, and for some particular reason unbeknownst to me, I didn't really care for it either.  So there I was eating, and I realized that in silence, for I was eating alone, it was far easier to listen to the cues that my body was giving me. It was as if my body usually tries to talk to me, but to avoid eating alone, I turn on the tv, which at least provides some semblance of company.  It gets better.  As I was eating, I noticed all the food on the plate, and as I usually do, I ate everything.  Tisk tisk, on me. If I would have had an elephant sized portion put in front of me, I would have eaten it whole I tell you.  This isn't very good, but without getting off track, I realized something.  As soon as I did finish eating, I realized that "that's it, I'm finished."  There's no more food, the activity is over. 

Why is this so groundbreaking you may be asking yourself? Because when you sit to eat and turn on the television, you have begun an activity.  You have begun to eat and watch tv.  You are not eating, that is a completely different activity.  You are not watching tv, that is a completely different activity. You are sitting down to eat and watch tv, and until that complete action comes to a close, you are going to gain calories to your daily caloric intake.  So, when you sit down, and your brain associates food with TV, you know that you are going to continue to eat so long as you're watching TV.  So imagine that instead of gaining weight because you're inactive, you are also gaining weight because you are eating and watching tv.  So how does this translate to my experience tonight?  It is very simple. When I usually watch tv and eat, I go for seconds, go for desert, go for a snack, go for something else until two things happen.  My body is yelling at me so loud that even the distraction of the TV can't drown it out, telling me that I'm full.  And secondly, since I have finished eating, that's it. No more eating.  I am full. 

This is very interesting, and I hope I've done a good job of explaining it.  It feels like one of those things that is hard to talk about or explain, and that maybe only at some kind of weight loss camp you can connect about it.  The reality is though that the more you watch TV, the likelier you are to be overweight.  It's very easy, especially nowadays with hundreds of channels to choose from, not to sit in front of the TV when confronted with some spare time.  The fact is, though, that it is quite dangerous if you do not do it in moderation, or if you sit in front of the TV with a bag of chips or popcorn.  I mean think about it. I've just thought of a great example.  Imagine sitting alone in your living room, eating potato chips.  Nothing else is going on, the TV isn't on, the radio or music isn't playing. You're just sitting alone in your living room eating potato chips. Silence surrounds you, there are no distractions.  Isn't there a little voice in your head that you can hear telling you, "What are you doing?"  When you turn on the idiot box, though, that sound is completely drowned out.  Wow guys, that's some "food for thought", ey?  No pun intended there, hehe.  I hope this helps guys. It sounds like a really good idea to avoid eating and watching TV simultaneously.  Remember, fitness camps are good to go to to jump start weight loss, or to help if you're extremely obese. But to have to live in one? I wouldn't want to.