Psychologist reveals how to lose weight by conditioning your appetite

Imagine how much your health and figure would appreciate it if it were easy to stop consuming junk food and adopt a more nutritious diet. Well, psychologist Helen McCarthy created a kind of “appetite pendulum” that can be very useful in this task. And even though the path to healthier eating requires commitment on your part, if you follow her advice and start eating more vegetables (and enjoying it), it will certainly become something much easier.

We, from awesome.club, we are sure that you were curious to know more about it. So keep reading!

The appetite pendulum is an 11-point scale, ranging from −5 — “extreme hunger” to +5 — “uncomfortably satisfied”. in your book How to Retrain Your Appetite, in free translation), Helen explains that when we are not hungry, the pendulum is at 0, a neutral position. When hunger strikes, the scale goes to the negative side; going to the positive side when we started to eat.

The psychologist considers that we should only start eating when we are in phase −3 — “Hungry”, and end the meal at position +3 — “Satisfactorily full”; something that is essential to a healthy diet. By following this rule, we avoid eating too much food, which leads to gradual weight loss. Helen McCarthy claims that it was with “appetite training” that she was able to lose weight.

According to Helen, feeling a little hungry is actually healthy. So you don’t need to desperately run away from that feeling. If you don’t feel mildly hungry an hour before your next meal, it means your stomach is still digesting what you last ate and hasn’t had time to rest.

The problem is that most people have been conditioned to eat at certain times, regardless of whether or not they are hungry. And even if we wanted to eat the moment our body asked for it, we wouldn’t always have the time or conditions to do so. That’s why the day divided into three meals is so convenient for our daily lives.

In that case, the important thing is to choose what you will eat according to the time of your next meal. If you only have an hour left for lunch, but hunger is already bothering you, make a snack that is easily digestible: fruits or vegetables, for example. So, by lunchtime, hunger will be hitting again. But if there’s still a lot of time before your next meal, choose something rich in protein, fiber and fat. Eggs and nuts are good choices for such times.

In her book, Helen also says that we tend to choose sweet, salty and fatty foods, because they have flavors that please our palate, even if we are not hungry. As a result, we end up eating more than necessary. On the other hand, if we have a full stomach and we eat, for example, tomatoes, they will not seem so tasty.

So, when we condition ourselves to wait until that little hunger hits before a meal, healthy foods take on a more appealing taste, as the receptors in our bodies are more sensitive when we’re on an empty stomach. With this, dishes that are healthy and that might not have caught your eye will now seem more delicious. As for the junk food, full of additives and other chemical substances, the author says that it becomes less attractive as we begin to perceive its artificial taste more clearly.

Have you ever heard of this or another technique for training your appetite? Do you usually have some control over what you eat? We’d love to read your review!