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• Previous article: How Healthy Foods Can Hurt Your Weight Loss Goal
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).
About the author
Psychologist, Jeremy Dean, PhD is the founder and author of PsyBlog. He holds a doctorate in psychology from University College London and two other advanced degrees in psychology.
He has been writing about scientific research on PsyBlog since 2004. He is also the author of the book “Making Habits, Breaking Habits” (Da Capo, 2003) and several ebooks:
- Accept Yourself: How to feel a profound sense of warmth and self-compassion
- The Anxiety Plan: 42 Strategies For Worry, Phobias, OCD and Panic
- Spark: 17 Steps That Will Boost Your Motivation For Anything
- Activate: How To Find Joy Again By Changing What You Do
→ Dr Dean’s bio, Twitter, Facebook and how to contact him.
Choosing meal image from Shutterstock
Weight loss
→ This post is part of a series on weight loss:
- How Healthy Foods Can Hurt Your Weight Loss Goal
- Dieting Advice: Only Eat When Hungry — Sounds Obvious But It’s Hard
- Why Eating With a Fork Versus A Spoon Can Aid Weight Loss
- This Very Easy Change To Tableware Can Help You Eat 30% Less
- People Eat Fewer Calories After A Straightforward Change To Home Environment
- How The Sounds You Make While Eating Could Help You Lose Weight
- Weight Loss: Why You Should Put A Mirror Up In The Kitchen
