Those who want to lose weight should pay close attention to the amount of unhealthy foods they consume, but they can relax when it comes to healthier foods, according to a new study published in the journal Consumer Research.
“Despite the fact that self-control is usually seen as a struggle between will and desire, people who restrict themselves in food cannot fully rely on willpower. They need to create situations that will cause them to lose interest in food. One way is to closely monitor for the amount of junk food they eat, "wrote authors Joseph P. Redden (University of Minnesota) and Kelly L. Hoos (Texas University of Agriculture and Engineering).
Some people show great self-control while on a diet, while millions of others cannot stop and allow themselves too much, leaning on junk food. Do the former have more willpower? Or are they just saturated faster?
After conducting a series of experiments, the authors found that people who manage to successfully follow a diet consume less junk food because they eat more quickly. They also found that many weak-willed people managed to pull themselves together when they carefully watched what they ate.
In one interesting study, a group of volunteers was asked to eat healthy or unhealthy foods. Some of them were asked to count the number of pieces of food eaten. As a result, even people with weak willpower ate the same amount of food as their comrades with a high level of self-control.
"People on a diet should pay attention to the amount of junk food, but not to the amount of healthy. Control of healthy food can actually lead to the opposite result. Thus, the secret to success is the ability to control the process of eating," the authors summarize .
What is junk food, readers ask? Any non-natural food such as sausages, canned food, sausages, fast food, purchased sweets, sweet soda, fast food, instant soups and noodles, chips, etc.
