Category: Weight Loss

This weight loss barrier makes weight particularly difficult to lose.

People who eat in response to their emotional states find it particularly hard to lose weight, research finds.

Emotional eaters often agree with statements like:

• “When I feel lonely, I console myself by eating.”
• “While on a diet, if I eat a food that is not allowed, I often splurge and eat other high calorie foods.”

In contrast, people who eat mainly in response to external factors (like festive celebrations) find it easier to lose weight and keep it off.

Breaking the cycle of emotional eating involves identifying the feelings and situations that trigger eating and changing the habit.

The strategies that most psychologists recommend include cognitive therapy, mindfulness and problem-solving.

Dr Heather Niemeier, the study’s first author, explained:

“We found that the more people report eating in response to thoughts and feelings, such as, ‘when I feel lonely, I console myself by eating,’ the less weight they lost in a behavioral weight loss program.

In addition, amongst successful weight losers, those who report emotional eating are more likely to regain.”

In other words, emotional eaters are particularly susceptible to weight regain following weight loss.

Dr Niemeier said:

“Participants in behavioral weight loss programs lose an average of 10 percent of their body weight and these losses are associated with significant health benefits.

Unfortunately, the majority of participants return to their baseline weight within three to five years.”

The conclusions come from a study that looked at thousands of people trying to lose weight.

The results showed that it was critical how people’s eating was triggered.

Some people were triggered by external events and others by internal events.

Internal events include thoughts and emotions — what are commonly known as ’emotional eaters’.

Emotional eaters found it harder to lose weight and tended to put it on again later on.

Dr Niemeier said:

“Our results suggest that we need to pay more attention to eating triggered by emotions or thoughts as they clearly play a significant role in weight loss.”

Emotional eating patterns are often learnt in childhood.

Children given sweet treats as a reward can continue this habit in adulthood.

The problem with emotional eating is that once the pleasure of eating is over, the emotional hunger remains.

The study was published in the journal Obesity (Niemeier et al., 2007).

The weight loss technique that overcomes emotional eating.

Learning to understand how foods make you feel is the key to successful weight loss, research finds.

When people are trained to identify and understand their emotions, they make healthier food choices, psychologists have discovered.

For example, foods like cookies might be linked to comforting memories of childhood or feelings of safety, which encourages their consumption.

But, someone with higher emotional awareness can spot the automatic link and predict the regret they will feel later on.

Understanding the emotions works better than nutritional knowledge in promoting weight loss, the study showed.

The study’s authors write:

“With a better understanding of how they feel and how to use emotions to make better decisions, people will not only eat better, they will also likely be happier and healthier because they relate better to others and are more concerned with their overall well-being.”

For the study, people trying to lose weight were given emotional training.

They were shown different foods and asked to pay attention to how it changed their emotions and those of other people.

At the end of the training session participants were asked to choose a snack.

Those who had had the emotion training were more likely to choose the healthier option.

The reason the emotion training is so useful is that people generally find it hard to be objective and observe their emotions dispassionately.

In a follow-up study, 106 people were followed over a three-month period to see who lost weight.

Those who had had the emotion training lost most weight in comparison to a control group, and in comparison to those who had received a nutritional knowledge course.

Part of the reason the emotion training works is it breaks down an automatic link in people’s minds between foods being unhealthy and foods being tasty.

The study’s authors write:

“We not only demonstrate that emotional ability is trainable and that food choices can be enhanced, but also that emotional ability training improves food choices beyond a nutrition knowledge training program.”

The study was published in the Journal of Marketing Research (Kidwell et al., 2014).

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