The Waist-Shrinking Power of Guys’ Night

Here’s a great excuse to go to B-Dubs with your buddies instead of having dinner with her: It’ll help your waistline.

In another sign of whom you are eating with influences the choices you make, a new study in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology shows that men who eat with women take in more calories.

More from MensHealth.com: The Truth About Calories

Researchers observed 127 college students in a dining hall at Indiana University of Pennsylvania for 10 days. When men ate with only guys, their average calorie intake was 952. But when at least one woman was present at the table with the guys, men ordered 1,162 calories.

The reason: to impress girls. Guys may subconsciously use eating lots of food as a way to demonstrate manliness. “At a prime age for wanting to attract females, this urge to appear manly is even more extreme when around women,” explains Marci Cottingham, coauthor of the study and a graduate student at the University of Akron.

“We'd all like to think that we are autonomous actors, but the truth is that we are affected by social forces outside of ourselves, whether we recognize them or not,” Cottingham adds.

Your move: Get your eating environment on your side. Never eat in front of a TV, at your desk, or in the dark—all of these habits trigger calorie gorging, studies have shown. Instead, savor every bite. Students ate 50 fewer calories at lunch when they were instructed to focus on the flavor and texture of their food, according to a recent study.

More from MensHealth.com: Feed Your Fat Burners

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