In an ideal world, you’d be able to eat what you want and still manage to maintain an ideal weight, right?! Well, it might not be that far-fetched after all.
It turns out that simply believing you’ve eaten a bigger meal can actually curb your appetite.
A new study has found that your initial expectation about food plays a huge part in how your body reacts to that food. In short: You are what you think you eat!
Researchers from Sheffield Hallam University demonstrated this by feeding 26 people what they thought was either a two-egg or four-egg omelette.
Blood samples were then taken from the participants to establish how much of the ‘hunger hormone’ ghrelin was in their system.
Two hours after eating, the two-egg group reported being significantly hungrier than those who had the larger omelette, prompting them to consume more calories later in the day.
The twist? All of the participants ate the same sized omelette containing three eggs.
When the research was presented at a meeting of the British Psychological Society, lead author Dr Steven Brown explained that this was a direct effect of the immense power of the mind.
This was determined by the fact that the level of ghrelin didn’t vary between the participants.
“Changes in reported hunger and the differences in later consumption are not due to differences (sic) in participants’ physical response to the food,” Brown explained.
“Therefore, memory for prior consumptions, as opposed to physiological factors, may be a better target for investigating why expectations for a meal have an effect on subsequent feelings of hunger and calorie intake.”
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