14 DAY TRIAL // If you're planning to go on a diet and are contemplating cutting back on most of the delicious yet calorific dishes which delighted you at lunch time almost every day, wait until you hear what the latest studies in the effect of the mind on weight loss tell us. Apparently, thinking about food is not as bad as we thought it was, especially if there's a weight loss goal involved. Scientists now believe that if actively trying to remember the last meal we had at the time when we're starting to feel hungry, this will in fact suppress our appetite and keep us feeling full a longer period of time.
Researchers at the University of Birmingham have been working to establish the connection between memory and the desire to snack on junk food. Apparently, if we really concentrate on our food while we're eating and don't allow ourselves to be distracted by, say, watching TV, the memory of the meal will persist in or brains and we'll feel less hungry later on. "The findings suggest that weight watchers can teach themselves to be less greedy - and that techniques such as hypnotism and behavioral therapy could help" it has been claimed.
The researchers conducted several types of tests. In one, they served lunch to a bunch of volunteers, which they separated into two groups. One group was asked to recount their meal in writing, mentioning as many details as they could, while the other group was asked to write down another story that had nothing to do with food. Later tests confirmed that the volunteers in the group who had not been asked to dwell on food got hungry a lot faster than members of the other group. These results point out that the if the part of the brain responsible for remembering recent meals (the hippocampus) is stimulated, this could have an appetite suppressing effect.
The answer, then, is to dwell on your meals instead of trying not to think about food at all or eating absent-mindedly propped in front of your TV or computer. Pay attention to your food, tell yourselves that it will keep you feeling full a longer period of time and train yourself to feel increasingly less greedy about food in general - and you'll make your diet a more manageable affair than you might originally imagine.