How to Loss Weight
One of the night's final courses involved whiskey poured into two glasses. The first glass was thick and wide-rimmed with parallel lines up the sides. The second was smaller and lighter with a wide bowl that tapered at the rim. We took a drink from each. "Are they the same or different?" Youssef asked.
My sip from the heavier glass tasted more alcoholic and more pungent. According to Spence, heavy weight conveys bitterness and masculinity. The whiskey from the smaller glass tasted sweeter and more intense, as if its flavors were more concentrated. Turns out, both drinks were Chivas 12.
In a similar experiment, people were served yogurt in two bowls that looked the same but differed in weight. They were asked to hold each bowl while deciding which yogurt might keep them fuller. The heaviest bowl rated higher. The brain associates heft with tastiness. The inverse may also hold true: When your fast food arrives in lightweight paper, you're being led to lower your expectations.
Here's how to hack your sense of touch to lose weight.
1. Buy Heavy Cutlery
Using a heftier knife and fork has been shown to make people rate food as higher in quality than, say, a meal that's served with plastic utensils.
2. Cup Your Meal
Having oatmeal? Hold the bowl in your hands when you eat. Feeling the weight has been shown to make you feel fuller faster, since you attribute the heavy feeling to a richer meal. Try this apple cinnamon peanut butter oatmeal for a seriously filling breakfast.
3. Eat Slow Food
In a Singaporean study, people ate six times more quickly when their food was the "fast" variety like a smoothie than when it was "slow" as in something that's bitten and chewed. What's more, these fast-food eaters ingested 10 to 30 percent more calories than the slow food eaters, though both groups tended to feel equally full.
After the meal, Spence said something that stuck with me. "If I had to rank the senses in order of importance for eating, I'd choose sight and smell as most important," he said. "Then sound and touch. Last is taste."
Knowing the different ways restaurants and food producers manipulate your senses is your
1. Challenge yourself.
"I never did any exercise," O'Donnell said, but when he started losing weight, he decided to sign up for a couch to 5K app simply "to prove it can't be done." But after eight weeks, he ran for 30 minutes without stopping. Running has become a new healthy habit for O'Donnell, who ran a marathon last year.
2. Try cooking new things.
"We made a recipe during our first week on the Slimming World program and I fell in love with it," O'Donnell recounted. "It's barbecue pulled pork, and if I haven't had it in a couple of weeks, I get upset." Other favorites included curries and lean ground-beef burgers.
3. Read other inspiring weight-loss stories.
"Check out stories from people who have done it before, he said. They inspired me and made me want to give it a go. They made me think that I could succeed, too.
4. Don't deprive yourself.
"I never felt deprived when I craved something like chocolate or candy. I knew I could have it because I could make an allowance in my plan," O'Donnell explained. "If I wanted to have that chocolate bar or glass of wine or beer, it wouldn't be a problem. Treats were part of the menu!"
5. Find a plan or method. Don't try to go it alone.
Every time O'Donnell and his wife tried to lose weight, they wound up giving up. I needed plan and I needed to address my relationship with food," O'Donnell said. "What was so great about it (the Slimming World plan) was the support and the way the plan was structured to encourage people without making them feel guilty.
