It’s a simple trick that makes it easier to stick to healthier food choices. Brain hack #2 Think of yourself as a ‘healthy eater’ Research also shows you’ll eat twice as much of the food you’ve bought the most of - because volume equals better visibility in the fridge. eat one before you hit the supermarket and you will buy 25 per cent more fruit and vegies, because as a food with a healthy reputation, an apple encourages a healthy-food-buying frame of mind. Luckily, new research has also identified the best pre-shopping snack - an apple. ‘Hungry shopping’ causes people to fill their trolleys with 31 per cent more high-kilojoule foods, one study has found. There’s a reason you should never shop on an empty stomach. 10 ways to retrain your brain Brain hack #1 Eat an apple before shopping So, instead of trying to lose weight or fight sugar cravings by relying purely on self-control, you can use the following science-backed strategies that talk directly to your body’s boss - your brain. Taking steps to stress less, or utilising complex mental imagery techniques, aren’t the only ways to push your brain into weight-loss-friendly mode, if you want to lose weight.Ī 2018 study proved the value of the ‘nudge theory’, confirming that making some simple but strategic tweaks helps your brain choose the healthier option - no willpower required. This is known as the ‘danger spot’ for health. The brain’s response to chronic stress also affects where, and how much, fat gets stored - and makes it more likely to accumulate around the stomach. That’s because these foods encourage the release of ‘happy hormones’ which then bind to receptors in our brains, reducing the damaging effect of stress hormones. Stress also pushes us to crave and seek out foods high in fat (saturated being the unhealthy kind), salt and sugar. Stress dampens important activity in the area of the brain responsible for impulse control (hello cravings!). New research also shows that mental stress can have a big impact on our weight and suggests taking steps to manage stress can promote fat loss (if that’s what we want) - even without making any dietary changes. #Healthy food for weight loss freePeople were completely free in their choices. “It’s fantastic that people lost significantly more weight on this intervention, because unlike most studies, it provided no diet or physical activity advice or education. This technique challenges the brain to come up with an image of what change might look or feel like, and how it could be maintained during challenging times. Mental imagery to make changeĭr Linda Solbrig, who led a 2018 study that investigated how mental imagery can affect weight loss, found that people who used the imagery technique lost five times more weight than people who didn’t. It turns out that what happens up there influences not only how easily people do - or don’t - lose weight, it can also affect how likely they are to gain unwanted weight. So, it’s time to hand over the reins to your grey matter: your brain. Something about the weight-loss equation isn’t working. But, for those of us trying to lose unwanted weight it can be like an uphill battle we can’t seem to win. On paper, weight loss seems a pretty simple equation: if you eat fewer kilojoules than your body burns, then the scales will start to shift in the right direction. A new approach to weight loss puts your brain in the driver’s seat - and it works to beat food cravings too.
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