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If you’re weight watching – you need appetite suppressing glasses
Avoiding eye contact with chocolate fudge sundae, is helpful, but there is more to “watching” than meets the eye.
You’re “watching” what you eat. You have to, an extra kilogram, or two can attach itself to your hips remarkably quickly.
And then NEVER leave !
For most of us – “watching” implies avoiding forbidden items.
Avoiding eye contact with chocolate fudge sundae, is helpful when you’re trying to keep forbidden items off the menu, but there is more to “watching” than meets the eye.
The hunger conversation
Researchers from Bristol University, enlisted the help of volunteers, to study, just how much your eyes, contribute to the “hunger” conversation. Ultimately, a 100 volunteers arrived for their FREE LUNCH.
Of course, there is NO such thing, as a FREE LUNCH.
The volunteers were subjected to some trickery – their soup bowls had been doctored, a bit.
The not so free lunch
Everyone did get soup, but how much, was manipulated, using a hydraulic pump, so the amount of soup seen, did not always correspond to the amount of soup consumed.
In the end…
- 25 volunteers saw 300 ml of soup and got 500 ml
- 25 volunteers saw 500 ml of soup, but were short changed, they only got 300 ml
- 25 volunteers saw 300 ml of soup and got 300 ml
- 25 volunteers saw 500 ml of soup and got 500 ml
Seeing is believing
Once the soup had been eaten, volunteers were asked how satisfied they felt with the free lunch. The researchers were not interested in a critique of the soup quality, but in whether the soup had filled up the hole.
The results can be seen here…
Hunger ratings (0–100 mm) taken 0, 60, 120, and 180 minutes after consuming different soup combos. © 2012 Brunstrom et al.
Immediately after lunch, those who ate more soup felt fuller. Duh !
But a couple of hours later – the story unexpectedly changed.
The eyes “rule” the plate
The people who had seen the small bowl of soup (300 ml), shown with the solid squares, felt way more hungry, than the people who had seen the big bowl of soup (500 ml), shown with the open circles.
NOTE : They had SEEN the bowl of soup, not EATEN the bowl of soup.
The eyes were dictating hunger.
THE EYES, not the stomach.
Watching whether you are full
So if you’re watching what you eat – WATCH OUT. This research, suggests your eyes are always “watching”, but their vigilance may not always serve you.
Your eyes, in partnership with your tongue, are not only taking into account which tantalizing morsels are on the plate, they’re also registering, just how much is on the plate.
It’s a learned response
From past experience, your eyes, in partnership with your brain, have learned exactly how much of something, it takes to make you feel full. So, anytime you sit in front of a plate of food, the eye sends a report to the brain, informing it, whether, in it’s opinion, there is enough food to satisfy your energy needs.
When the plate is loaded, the report is A GO.
When the plate is “empty”, the report is, that this meal is a DISASTER.
STARVATION is imminent.
And that the brain must institute plan B……………..
Starvation is highly unlikely
Of course, in today’s world, food is always, just around the corner, so starvation is highly unlikely. Most of us, live in in a world, of MORE THAN ENOUGH. Unfortunately, if you’re running the “I am about to starve programme” in your head, your brain responds accordingly – with THE AVOID STARVATION, PLAN
This plan, involves EATING MORE.
Calorie rich foods, are given high priority.
The next meal effect
So at the very next meal, even if your stomach doesn’t actually feel, it needs a little more, your brain will insist on taking extra bites, to avert a potential energy crisis.
And, even when the bites, are perfectly acceptable i.e. real food, not high in carbs or fats, the fact that you’re eating MORE, than you really need, means the MORE needs to be processed. And more often than not, the MORE ends up being stored, for a rainy day……
And thanks to climate change – rainy days don’t happen too often. Ouch !
Eye scans are trouble
You’re not just eating because you KNOW it will taste good and your stomach is empty, you’re loading up the plate because of an EYE SCAN.
An eye scan that happened a couple of hours earlier.
Your eyes are doing more than leading you into temptation – they loading up the plate ! Maybe it is time to get glasses – so that the food on your plate, LOOKS BIGGER ?
Appetite suppressing glasses
Unfortunately, a pair of these “puppies”, is not readily available, but, you can make the amount of food on your plate look like MORE – is to use a smaller plate.
It might be chic and cool to have enormous plates on the table, but that helping of food, disappears on the BIG plate. The same serving on a small plate, ends up occupying the whole plate – which LOOKS like a lot more.
Your eyes will be IMPRESSED……
Your stomach, well it just goes with the flow ! Lol !
The size of your plate matters
Plates come in a range of sizes, make sure you default to smaller plate sizes.
You’ll be less hungry at your next meal, so the odds that you eat, more than your NEED, is lowered.
NOTE : What you put on your plate, also impacts how full you feel, as a rule, proteins and fats, are satisfying, carbs, NOT SO MUCH !
Further reading
Scents and sensibility – use ambient odours to eat LESS
There are warm scents and cool scents – the classification your brain uses, can impact how many calories you end up eating, in a scented eating environment
How food makes us HOT and HOT makes us STOP eating
Meal associated thermogenesis, is one of the ways, our body flips the off switch on eating – discover how to use this biology to your advantage
The secret to eating less is to serve up a little more
When it comes to food, your brain more often than not, forgets to act like a grown up so use a little psychology on it, give it what it wants – give it more.
