Category: Weight Loss

The best way to choose a successful diet plan.

Simple diets lead to more weight loss than those that are complex, research suggests.

The reason is that the simpler the diet, the easier it is to stick to.

When choosing between different diets, consider how many rules and plans each has, the study’s authors advise.

Then, choose the one that seems easiest — it is the best bet for long-term weight loss and weight maintenance.

Professor Peter Todd, study co-author, said:

“For people on a more complex diet that involves keeping track of quantities and items eaten, their subjective impression of the difficulty of the diet can lead them to give up on it.”

Successful dieting is about more than just willpower, said Professor Jutta Mata, the study’s first author:

“Even if you believe you can succeed, thinking that the diet is cognitively complex can undermine your efforts.”

The study tested two different types of diets on 390 women.

The first was a popular German recipe diet that provides a straightforward shopping list and meal plan.

It is relatively simple because there are few options.

The other diet tested was Weight Watchers, which involves counting calories.

This is a more complex diet that gives point values to foods and requires adding up the totals.

It is more flexible, but takes greater mental effort.

The results showed that women were more likely to stick to the simpler German recipe list and meal plan.

Professor Mata said:

“If they decide to go with a more complex diet, which could be more attractive for instance if it allows more flexibility, they should evaluate how difficult they find doing the calculations and monitoring their consumption.

If they find it very difficult, the likelihood that they will prematurely give up the diet is higher and they should try to find a different plan.”

The study was published in the journal Appetite (Mata et al., 2010).

The taste of fruit salad was unaffected by the presence of a mirror.

Putting up a mirror in the kitchen could help you eat less unhealthy food, new research finds.

In the study, people who ate chocolate cake felt it was less tasty when there was a mirror in the room.

Fruit salad, though, was unaffected by the presence of a mirror.

Dr Ata Jami, the study’s author, said:

“A glance in the mirror tells people more than just about their physical appearance.

It enables them to view themselves objectively and helps them to judge themselves and their behaviors in a same way that they judge others.”

Dr Jami explains how the mirror works in the paper:

“…consuming unhealthy food in front of a mirror enhances the self-awareness of current behavior.

This leads to discomfort when one realizes that such behavior does not match with one’s ideal standards of 4 living.

Since objective attribution of discomfort to self enhances the discomfort, people utilize a biased attribution process and negatively distort their taste perception to explain the discomfort.”

The study was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (Jami, 2016).

Kitchen image from Shutterstock

If you’re watching your weight, then here’s a trick that helps.

Using a plate that’s 30% smaller really does reduce food consumption by 30%, new research finds.

It’s been a controversial topic for psychologists, with over fifty different studies published on the topic over the years.

Some studies have found smaller plates help people eat less, others not.

Now, though, a new survey of all the research finds that the trick works, as long as people:

• serve themselves,
• and are unaware they are being monitored.

Over the years scientists have tested all kinds of foods, including snack foods, rice, fruit, cereals and popcorn.

The effect of using smaller plates — as long as people serve themselves and aren’t aware they are being monitored — is usually the same.

They eat less.

Reducing the diameter of a plate by 30% is enough to reduce consumption by 30%.

Dr Natalina Zlatevska, one of the study’s authors, said:

“Just changing to smaller plates at home can help reduce how much you serve yourself and how much you eat.”

If you’re watching your weight, then, it could be time to get some new, smaller, plates.

The study was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (Holden et al., 2016).

Plate image from Shutterstock

Even cutlery can unconsciously affect eating behaviour and weight loss.

People eat less when using a fork than when using a spoon, new research finds.

When eating with spoons, though, people assume the food has a lower amount of calories.

The reason why is fascinating.

Scientists had people eating bite-size pieces of food, such as chocolate cake.

They were asked to eat it either with a spoon or a fork.

Afterwards they estimated how many calories it had, how tasty it was and how much more they’d like to eat.

The results showed that when eating with spoons, people taste the food more gradually.

This leads them to think that each bite is smaller…

…and so they eat more.

So, to help weight loss goals, better to stick to the fork.

The study was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (Szocs & Biswas, 2016).

Forks image from Shutterstock

Why the most obvious dieting advice is so hard to follow.

It might seem pretty obvious dieting advice: only eat when you’re hungry.

Unfortunately we now all live in an environment in which we are surrounded by food.

And these aren’t just any foods.

These are foods that have been engineered to be as attractive to us as possible.

Chocolates, cheeseburgers, potato chips and so on.

All strike directly at our basest culinary desires.

So people tend to eat when they are not hungry.

The result, according to new research, is that blood sugar may spike after eating.

Rapid blood sugar spikes are often unhealthy as they damage the body’s cells.

The message comes from a study which tested the blood sugar levels of people who were either:

• moderately hungry before eating or,
• not hungry.

The study’s concludes that it may be healthier for people to eat when they are moderately hungry rather than not hungry.

Advice we can all agree with I’m sure, but which can be difficult to follow….

The study was published in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research (Gal. 2016).

Choosing meal image from Shutterstock

Healthy foods can paradoxically lead to weight gain.

People eat more of foods labelled “healthy” as they consider them less filling, a new study finds.

The research suggests that those aiming for weight loss should be wary of inbuilt beliefs about healthy foods.

Over a series of studies, scientists found that people automatically see more healthy foods as less filling than they actually are.

When the same food is portrayed as healthy (as opposed to unhealthy), people:

• order larger portions of the ‘healthy’ food.
• eat more of the food labelled as ‘healthy’.
• report more hunger after eating ‘healthy’ foods.

This was even true of people who said they did not believe that healthy foods were less filling.

Ironically, the labelling of food as healthy could actually be contributing to the obesity crisis.

However, the scientists found a way to reverse this.

By highlighting how nourishing healthy foods are, people’s bias was lessened.

Hopefully this article is doing the same thing — whether or not it will lead to weight loss, you will have to find out!

The study was published in The Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, (Suher et al., 2015).

Fork measuring tape image from Shutterstock

The key to weight loss, diet change, quitting smoking and more…

The more people monitor their progress towards a goal, the more likely they are to succeed.

It also seems to matter how you monitor your progress.

The best techniques are publicly or physically recording progress.

For example, those trying to lose weight should regularly weigh themselves in front of others.

The conclusions come from 138 different studies including 19,951 people.

Most participants were trying to lose weight, quit smoking, lower blood pressure or change their diet.

Dr Benjamin Harkin, who led the research, said:

“Monitoring goal progress is a crucial process that comes into play between setting and attaining a goal, ensuring that the goals are translated into action.”

The more people monitored their progress, the greater their chances of achieving their goal.

One key the researchers uncovered was that it is vital to focus mainly on the end result you are looking for.

For example, if you are trying to lose weight, it’s best to monitor and record just your weight.

Some people trying to lose weight who just monitored their diet only succeeded in changing their diet, not in losing weight.

Dr Harkin said:

“The implication of this finding is if you want to change your diet, then monitor what you are eating, but if you want to lose weight, then focus on monitoring your weight.”

Dr Harkin continued:

“Our findings are of relevance to those interested in changing their behavior and achieving their goals, as well as to those who want to help them, like weight loss programs, money advice agencies or sport coaches.

Prompting people to monitor their progress can help them to achieve their goals, but some methods of monitoring are better than others.

Specifically, we would recommend that people be encouraged to record, report or make public what they find out as they assess their progress.”

The study was published in the journal Psychological Bulletin (Harkin et al., 2015).

Healthy image from Shutterstock