I normally don’t suggest things I haven’t tried for long, but I’m too encouraged by the results to let this pass without comment. A few days ago I had lunch at Phillippe in downtown Los Angeles (the best sandwich shop in God’s country). Whenever I eat there, my self-discipline invariably goes out the window, and I find myself devouring enough to regret it immediately afterwards.

I ordered my usual French Dip, a bowl of clam chowder and a slice of chocolate cream pie. As soon as I set the tray down on the table, I found myself looking at the volume of food I was about to eat with different eyes. My intuition was raising a red flag against the act of hyperconsumption I was about to commit.

Staring at the food for a moment longer, a question suddenly came to mind.

What 20% of this would give me 80% of the satisfaction?

I wound up eating perhaps more than 20%, but well below half. I ate the full (small) bowl of clam chowder, less than half of the sandwich, and four forkfulls of the pie. I put the rest in a box, and repeated the process at home. It took me four days to finish a meal that I would have ordinarily pounded away in one sitting.

I’ve started doing this with everything I eat and drink now, and I not only have more energy when I’m finished, but the act of eating is more enjoyable. It’s not the mathematical proportion that matters. 80/20 is an arbitrary ratio in this context, and could just as easily be 50/50 or 90/10. What matter is the fact that I’m forced to pay attention to what I’m eating in relation to a standard of fulfillment, not consumption.

Like most Americans, I was raised to finish everything on my plate. This ethic carries a number of unexamined assumptions:

Everything on a plate is worth eating

The size of the plate is appropriate to the amount of food we actually need

The plate needs to be loaded

Food left on the plate is “wasted,” as opposed to turning to excess fat if eaten

“Full” meals are served on plates, as opposed to bowls, skewers or napkins

The 20% Not-to-Eat list

While I’ve only been applying the Pareto (80/20) principle to individual meals for less than a week, I’ve had more experience with a different application. Last December, I decided to lose some weight. Being too lazy to maintain a real diet, I asked myself, “What are the 20% of foods that are causing 80% of my excess weight?”

It took about three minutes to realize that they fell into two categories: candy and pastries. I was surprised by how simple it was to drop these from my eating routine (Phillipe being the one and only exception), since I usually ate them to alleviate boredom anyway. Sometimes resisting the urge took a little emotional effort, but the alternative of counting calories or carbs would have taken much more. I always prefer making things easier before applying more effort.

Within two days, I noticed that my stomach no longer exerted pressure against my belt, and within two weeks, I noticed that I had to keep pulling my pants up. In six weeks I lost 11 pounds, with nothing to analyze or track.

The great thing about 80/20 analyses is that they apply at any level. If you’ve already eliminated candy and pastries, your 20% might be dairy products and meat. Whatever it is, it’s usually something that’s obvious once you focus on it as an issue.



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