Actually, maybe not. Because there are plenty of sneaky tricks that make it easy to serve yourself smaller (but just as satisfying) helpings and feel fuller faster. The result? You end up eating less without feeling sad, deprived, or exhausted from obsessing over every morsel that goes into your mouth. Here, five simple ones you can start trying today.

  1. Stop staring at your phone. Distracted eating usually leads to overeating, concluded a recent review of 24 studies. But watching TV, responding to e-mails, or scrolling through Instagram doesn’t just cause you to chow down on more during your meal. When you eat without paying attention, you also end up snacking more later on, found a recent Appetite study. Focus on your food, and you’ll likely find yourself feeling fuller faster—and less tempted to scarf down that brownie later on.
  2. Serve yourself before sitting down. A table loaded up with family-style platters might look great on Pinterest. But when you’ve got that giant cast-iron skillet of mac and cheese sitting right in front of you, not taking seconds requires more willpower than most of us can muster. Fill your plate at the counter, and you won’t be able to have another helping without getting up. Which you’re way less likely to do—because, lazy.
  3. Chug some water first. Water takes up a lot of space in your stomach, which leaves less room for food. So when you eat, you end up getting fuller faster. Which is probably why one recent British study found that people who down 2 cups of water 30 minutes before a meal lose more weight than people who don’t. (BTW, we tried it, and it really works.) MORE: The Everyday Drink that Makes You Eat 384 More Calories a Day
  4. Use smaller dishes. Pick the tinier dish or bowl, and you’ll pile on less food without having to figure out if your salmon is actually the size of a deck of cards. Because regardless of what you think you know about proper portions, it all goes out the window when you feast your eyes on what’s before you. When Cornell researchers invited esteemed nutrition experts to an ice cream social, guests who were given large bowls helped themselves to 31% more of the sweet stuff than guests who were given small bowls. (They probably ate almost that much more, too, since research suggests that most of us can’t help but polish off practically everything on our plates.) MORE: 6 Clean Eating Habits that Make You Gain Weight
  5. And smaller utensils It’s not just big plates that nudge you to mindlessly eat more. Gigantic serving utensils make it easy to scoop up a heftier serving, too. Swap them out for smaller ones—like regular forks or tablespoons instead of ladles or tongs—and you’ll end up serving yourself around 15% less.