Starting a diet tomorrow? Read this..

It’s termed the ‘The Last Supper Effect’

And comes from what researchers see happen prior to weight loss research studies.

The participant is briefed about the research project. And they sign up, being told to come back in a few weeks to START.

What happens between that point of signing up and starting?

Yep, weight gain, overeating and behaviour not typical of that individual..

Which could actually skew a lot of the results in research.

^^ more on that another day.

In one study, people participated in a cookie tasting experiment. Half people were told they would go on a low calorie diet straight after, whereas the other half were not told they were going on a diet straight after.

What happened?

The people who were told they were about to go on a diet ate, ate more cookies than those who were not told…

So what does the research tell us about food and sugar addiction?

We do get a positive reward from consuming highly palatable sugary foods

Sugar addiction is difficult to define as you do not see people walking out of a supermarket eating sugar cubes…it is often fat and sugar (e.g. ultra processed foods like biscuits and cakes)

Studies show that when people are given more of the food they think they are addicted to, they show less addictive-like behaviours towards the food…

This suggests that restricting the food may be the issue….

Food for thought..

1.] Does abstaining put the food on a pedestal?

2.] By saying ‘don’t eat it’ how does that make you feel? Do you want it more?

Remember, there is a difference between saying:

I can’t eat digestive biscuits with my afternoon tea anymore

I am choosing not to have these digestive biscuits just for today as they do not align with my goals right now and it just makes me more hungry so I am not going to have this right now (this is me and peanut butter)