How to deceive your appetite It's no secret that during the long New Year holidays, many of us gain excess weight - well, if only a couple of kilos.
Is it really possible to refuse plentiful, delicious holiday feasts at home, away, or in restaurants? Scientists say it is possible! In addition to physical saturation, food gives us perhaps the most necessary feeling for a full life - psychological satisfaction. It is this that causes “eating problems” or rich holiday feasts and, as a result, the appearance of extra pounds. Modern scientists believe that you can be happy without overeating - you just need to pay more attention to everything related to the meal.
Formula
Psychologists have found that the ideal portion of food for a person is calculated using the formula X = 100% – 50% . In other words, this is exactly half of the amount of food that we are ready to “eat with our eyes”! It turns out that in order to be satisfied and not gain excess weight, half of the usual portion is enough for us. In fact, a person is designed in such a way that when he gives himself a portion of food, he subconsciously takes 2 times more than his body needs to be full, that is, he takes it “in reserve,” scientists explain. This is why we so often get up from the table with a feeling of heaviness in our stomach, although we have eaten no more than usual. In this case, exactly half the contents of the plate is the golden mean between saturation and moderate energy consumption. Thus, the practical application of the ideal portion formula is as follows: every time you put food on a plate, feel free to remove half - you will not remain hungry, and the acquired energy will not be converted into excess fat.
Breathe deeper
You've probably noticed that when you're nervous, you want to eat. This is explained by the fact that in a state of stress, our body produces a huge amount of cortisol, a hormone involved in metabolism. And this, in turn, prevents the formation of leptin, another hormone that is responsible for the feeling of fullness. Thus, the more often we get nervous, the more difficult it is for us to get rid of the feeling of hunger.
There are different ways to deal with nervous tension. Dr. Mark Hyman, author of a book on metabolism, recommend simple breathing exercises for this: inhale and try to exhale as hard as you can. At the same time, count to 5 and gradually relax your shoulders and arms. Then take a deep breath, again counting 5, and hold your breath for 4 seconds. Repeat the exercise for 5 minutes. This exercise should be done two to three times a day or whenever you want to grab something tasty.
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Toothbrush
As you know, a person is a hostage to his habits. And the habit of brushing your teeth after eating, according to psychologists, can be an excellent reason to “put off” your appetite. It is she who will come to the aid of those who cannot cope with the evening desire to snack. It's simple - if you feel hungry in the evening and are already heading to the refrigerator, look into the bathroom on the way and just try brushing your teeth! Scientists assure that thanks to this simple trick, the “teeth should be brushed after eating” attitude will work – and your appetite will disappear by itself.
Habitat
French psychologists have found that a person’s appetite directly depends on the intensity of nutrition and the eating habits of the people around him. More than 8 thousand French people of both sexes took part in the five-year study that allowed scientists to come to this conclusion. As a result, it turned out that those people whose friends, brothers or spouses are overweight increase their risk of obesity by an average of 47-57%! This is explained quite simply - a person unconsciously absorbs exactly as much food as is customary to eat in the society around him. It is this feature of our psychology that allows us to understand the reasons for intense weight gain during the New Year holidays! A way out of this difficult situation is offered by Russian scientists, who are confident that in order to avoid excess weight, a person should follow the example of... animals. “Nature is wise, and none of the animals will ever eat “for company,” psychologists say. “It’s time for us to give up this bad habit.” And try to eat strictly according to the clock, even if those around you have a wonderful appetite!” Scientists advise listening to your body more, rather than following the instinct of imitation.
How to outsmart your body
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Ways to remember nothing, calm your heart and get a good night's sleep
The human body has great hidden capabilities that many people are not aware of - and these capabilities are fully explained by physiology, psychology and neurobiology. We've collected some examples of how to outwit your body and brain and use these capabilities. For the most part, the tricks described do not harm health, but, on the contrary, are aimed at strengthening and improving it. However, we encourage readers to take care of themselves: be careful not to sacrifice sleep, starve yourself, or ignore pain or stress.
How to cheat a dream
Coffee and sleep
If you need sleep but don't have time, drink coffee and then take a 15-minute nap. This way, both sleep and caffeine will invigorate you. This double charge of vigor is possible due to the fact that the effect of caffeine begins approximately 20 minutes after consumption, and during such short sleep the body does not have time to fall into the deep sleep phase, only into microsleep, which restores a small reserve of strength.
Breath
Try a yogic breathing exercise. It is called “kapalabhati” and consists of taking a normal inhalation and a sharp, accentuated exhalation. Repeat this about 10 times. This technique warms, invigorates and affects the pineal gland, which affects the so-called circadian rhythms (sleep - wakefulness).
Exercises
As strange as it may seem, one of the best ways to overcome drowsiness and fatigue is to slightly strain your body and engage in physical activity. You can jump, squat, do push-ups. Any physical exercise at intervals of 20-30 minutes will help speed up the blood and improve the flow of oxygen to the cells, and, therefore, give additional energy to the body. The best option is a short walk. Studies show that 15 minutes of walking gives new energy for two hours of work. Of course, you won’t get much exercise at night, so you can replace a walk with 100 squats. The main thing here is not to overdo it, otherwise you risk exhausting the body so much that it immediately requires rest.
Self-hypnosis
If you are faced with the opposite problem - that is, your body is so excited that the sleep you need does not come, then you should use self-hypnosis. In psychology, such an effect is known as the “sleep paradox”. It is as follows: by convincing your body that it does not want to sleep, you turn your brain against itself. He begins to rebel and, like a small child, does exactly the opposite of what you call him to do, that is, he begins to get ready for bed.
How to trick your appetite
Beverages
Drink more fluids. Moreover, any other liquid except water (which is required to be consumed in a minimum amount every day) .
It could be green tea, water with lemon, tomato juice. That is, a liquid that will occupy your digestive tract for some time. By the time your body realizes that it has been literally and figuratively “cheated”, you will have time to prepare a healthy breakfast, lunch, dinner or snack.
Eat slowly
Give your body at least 20 minutes to eat. Yes, the pace of our lives has certainly accelerated much in recent years and even decades. However, our body evolves much more slowly. And so he’s used to it - it takes him about 20 minutes to eat; he’s just not ready for less time yet. And even if you managed to get enough in 5-10 minutes, your brain still can’t keep up with your stomach, and therefore continues to send “hungry” impulses.
Smells
Aromatherapy has a beneficial effect not only on the nervous system. It also helps people who are watching their figure, but whose body, naturally, sometimes rebels and demands food because it wants, and not because it needs. In this case, you should smell the perfume, light incense sticks, or smell the peel of a citrus fruit, such as grapefruit. Due to the fact that the centers of smell and hunger are located next to each other, smells suppress the feeling of hunger as our brain switches from one center to another.
How to trick your nerves
Get ready to perform
What do many of us do before an upcoming public speaking event? That's right, they are worried. And it doesn’t matter how many people you have to speak in front of - it could be your friend to whom you are about to propose, or reading poetry from the stage, or defending your thesis before a committee - in any case, your body will be subject to stress.
To avoid this worry, you should make sure that there are no mistakes on your part. And you can avoid them with preliminary preparation. And it’s not just about standing in front of a mirror, rehearsing your speech and watching your facial expressions and gestures. So you will deceive yourself: you will reassure yourself by remembering the words, although you have not prepared your body for the upcoming event at all. As soon as you go on stage, sit down at a cafe table - and that’s it, your rehearsals are crying. And all because the poor organism was preparing to perform the way it was prepared - standing alone in front of the mirror.
Repeat the same performance, but only in a different setting. Simulate the upcoming situation in your apartment. Let's say a public speaking: stand on a stand in the corner of the room, place chairs and armchairs in front of you, place toys on them or lay out clothes (use your imagination as much as possible) ,
turn on the noise of the streets or just the news on your computer at a low volume (this way you can train yourself to act calmly in the presence of extraneous noise, because no one guarantees that people will listen to you in deathly silence),
point
the light of a lamp at yourself, put on clothes that you have to perform. Relive this performance two, three, four times. When the time comes, you will feel not like a beginner, but like a teacher who is giving a long-familiar lecture to the next class.
How to deceive the body
Calm the heart
Palpitations may be the result of stress or pre-stress. Fortunately, our body is designed in such a way that many reactions can be stopped with the help of our own body. To calm your heartbeat, sometimes just blowing on something is enough (it is often recommended to blow on your thumb) .
The fact is that the breathing phases are closely related to the heart rate.
When inhaling, the vagus nerve (vagus) is depressed and the heart rate accelerates (therefore, during panic attacks, a person begins to inhale air more and more often and it is so important that he restores breathing as quickly as possible), while when exhaling
, the nerve is irritated, which leads to a slowdown in cardiac activity .
Proper breathing is one of the main ways to put yourself into a trance or meditative state. With the help of special breathing techniques, a person can cheer up or, conversely, fall asleep, or can practically stop his heart. It is known for sure that this “trick” is used by fakirs in India, who, with the help of breathing techniques and self-hypnosis, can slow down the heartbeat to such a speed that it seems as if it has stopped.
Get rid of side pain
Unfortunately, many of us have encountered such an unpleasant sensation as pain in the right side after walking or jogging. This syndrome occurs both in healthy people and in those who follow all the safety rules (don’t eat two hours before jogging, breathe properly, don’t make sudden stops while running) .
The fact is that when we exhale, stepping on our right foot, the pressure on the liver increases significantly - hence the pain in the side. Therefore, as soon as this unpleasant symptom appears, try to exhale while transferring your body weight to your left leg - this way the liver will put less pressure on the diaphragm, and gradually the pain will go away.
How to deceive the disease
Placebo
Very often, people who are sick or constantly think that they are sick are prescribed a placebo. In medicine, this is a dummy tablet, which can be ordinary ascorbic acid, and in this case it is not it that cures, but the patient’s confidence that he is taking the most effective medicine in the world. Our body is so amazing that it can cure not only a psychological illness if we are dealing with self-hypnosis, but also cope with a real illness. In modern medicine, doctors often resort to the placebo effect, prescribing beautiful, loud-named, but useless pills. The main thing here is self-hypnosis, so it is important that the patient believes that he is taking a real drug.
How to trick your memory
Palace of Memory
A person tends to underestimate himself and his body. This especially often applies to mental abilities and the power of our memory. Sometimes it seems to us that, having memorized a certain layer of information, we are no longer able to accommodate more or cannot cover all these layers at the same time. The method that proves the opposite is called the “Memory Palace” or “Locus Method”.
Its essence lies precisely in a kind of calming deception. You create in your head an image of a palace, a house, an apartment - any space convenient for you, where you place bright things or association phenomena. The deception here is that the brain does not focus on the fact that there are many new things to remember, but simply endows familiar images and objects with a slightly different meaning. This way you can memorize numbers, names, titles and entire phrases.
Distraction
Russian psychologists have proven that visiting grocery stores with chewing gum in your mouth can protect consumers from unplanned purchases, especially if the trip to the supermarket was on an empty stomach! As it turned out, the process of chewing aromatic gum “distracts” the attention of the part of the brain responsible for the feeling of hunger, provides short-term satiety and allows you to avoid making rash purchases based on the “eating with your eyes” principle. The same goes for visiting people. If you're visiting family or friends on an empty stomach, try chewing gum to distract your appetite. This kind of time-out will not only allow you not to eat everything at once, but will also give you time to choose the most suitable products for you and create your own menu that evening!
Why does hunger occur?
Feeling the need for food replenishment, the stomach begins to show certain signs - nausea occurs, dizziness, and a person feels an empty stomach. The brain is responsible for the occurrence of this signal. The stomach begins to contract more often, increasing the feeling of hunger. This condition is called "hunger cramps." At this moment, the body is absolutely indifferent to food - it can be either low-fat yogurt or a glass of plain water.
In the experiments conducted, scientists were able to find out that the double food center, located in the center of the brain, is responsible for different aspects of life: the first causes hunger, the second - a feeling of satiety. The first area is absolutely not subject to human change, so experts took on the second and it turned out that it is not food that affects it, but the process of chewing and breaking it down.
Nude
Eating naked is another way to significantly reduce your calorie intake! “It’s enough to undress before dinner and the feeling of embarrassment for the imperfections of your figure will make you eat much less,” psychologists assure. In this case, the ability of self-criticism inherent in every person comes into play. And if, when eating food in clothes, you forget about the hated extra centimeters, then in the nude your subconscious will work mercilessly and, as a result, block your appetite. As for holiday feasts, try to wear tight clothes - this is a great alternative to eating in the nude will help you avoid overeating and prevent self-criticism from letting your guard down!
Check boxes
Always remember exactly what and how much you ate during the day! According to psychologists, such control of food consumption will allow you to learn to balance your diet over time, regardless of the influence of external factors. By practicing this for 50 days, you will not only learn how to properly create a menu, but also begin to listen to the desires of your own body. So, for example, if you ate meat for lunch and mentally checked the box that you already had a meat dish in your diet today, for dinner you will most likely prefer fish, vegetables or mushrooms. In this case, a mental or written “tick” serves as a food intake controller and provides not only satiety, but also psychological satisfaction from the meal. In addition, this technique will allow you to avoid overeating with any particular product - if you ate a cake and gave yourself a report about it, that is, you checked the box, your body is satisfied with the cake for today, that is, it is psychologically full of it. If you do not give yourself an account of the food you have eaten, your body will receive satisfaction only as a result of real physical overeating. The most uncontrolled eating occurs during a meal in front of the TV - in front of it, the person’s brain is busy with what is happening on the screen and is not able to control food intake, which is why a person is able to eat much more than in silence at the table.
How to trick your body and lose weight in record time
Being in shape means being healthy and successful. Often, diets and exercise in fitness clubs do not help to qualitatively and permanently correct aesthetic defects in the figure or reduce weight. In matters of body aesthetics, a more expanded and individual approach is important, taking into account health status, lifestyle, and genetic characteristics. We asked one of the leaders in the personal care industry to talk about it in detail. Leikomtseva Yulia Nikolaevna, dermatocosmetologist
At the Fifth Element clinic, already at the initial consultation you receive a lot of recommendations based on collecting detailed information about your body and conducting bioimpedance measurements using the In Body device. These are simple and feasible tips on nutrition, sleep, daily routine, and behavior during travel.
Following circadian rhythms helps the body more easily adapt to the tasks assigned to it. For example, did you know that the maximum performance of the body and the highest muscle strength are observed between 10-12 and 16-19 hours. From 14 to 15 hours and at night there is a period of maximum decline in physical activity, at this time the body needs rest. From 15 to 16 hours is the best time for strength training; from 16 to 19 hours, tennis, swimming, jogging, and fitness are physiologically appropriate. But from 20 to 22 hours the body temperature begins to decrease, metabolic processes slow down, and the body begins to prepare for night sleep. At such times, only relaxation exercises are possible.
It has been proven that disruption of sleep patterns and quality leads to disruption of melatonin synthesis. The sleep hormone (melatonin) is an antioxidant that affects the functioning of the endocrine and immune systems; its deficiency leads to an increase in the production of stress hormones. One of them, cortisol, can cause both general obesity and local fat deposits. In men it is mainly on the stomach, in women - on the thighs. Therefore, it is important to sleep without waking up from 00:00 to 04:00 in absolute darkness for normal melatonin synthesis.
It should also be noted that with an unbalanced diet and nervous tension, the body is deficient in vitamins, micro- and macroelements, and many of them are important in achieving and maintaining results when correcting the figure. For example, chromium reduces cravings for sweets and normalizes carbohydrate metabolism in the body. Magnesium activates metabolism and promotes fat burning. Manganese and omega-3 fatty acids help to utilize fats in the body. Vitamin D, omega-3, iodine, selenium, copper take an important part in the synthesis and metabolism of hormones. For example, a decrease in the level of thyroid hormones provokes fluid retention in the body, a slowdown in metabolic processes and, as a result, persistent weight gain.
Optical illusion
Scientists are unanimous in their opinion that the blue color of dishes can curb your appetite! The thing is that dark blue, like each of the four primary colors, is an expression of one of the basic biological needs: physiologically - peace, psychologically - satisfaction. Our brain “reads” color signals at the level of collective consciousness, so the information message of blue color will be well understood by the subconscious and will give a signal of satisfaction much earlier than if the dishes are light or green. Eating food from blue dishes obviously gives a feeling of calm and satisfaction, which affects the decrease in appetite.
Saturation in theory
There are quite a lot of opinions about how to deceive the stomach and not harm your figure.
One of the most common theories states that as a result of the constant interaction between the food center, blood composition and cerebrospinal fluid (liquid circulating in the ventricles of the brain), hunger occurs. In states of hunger and satiety, their compositions have a significant difference.
During an experiment on guinea pigs, the blood of a well-fed one was transfused into a hungry animal and it turned out that the brain of the second one stopped showing signs of hunger.
Let's move away from psychological factors - stress, unhealthy lifestyle, and focus on the biochemical processes on which appetite depends:
- blood glucose ratio.
When the sugar level decreases, a signal is immediately transmitted to the brain, and the person begins to look for means of satiety. Extremely low glucose levels cause loss of consciousness, weakness and loss of ability to concentrate.
- Level of fat reserves.
Lipid levels are the energy reserves of the human body. When they are consumed (sports training, swimming, etc.), like all other substances, they immediately try to restore their performance. To replenish, lipids secrete the peptide hormone leptin, which, when released into the brain, provokes hunger signals. This process takes much longer than replenishing glucose levels.
For those who have followed a diet at least once, the ease of maintaining a three-day diet is familiar, but after this period, lipids “sound the alarm” and the risk of failure increases.
- Level of essential amino acids.
Protein is built primarily from these substances. But there are cases when the liver “extracts” glucose from certain amino acids for the body. The presence of such components in the blood will help protect yourself from the feeling of hunger.
During a diet, it is necessary to include in your menu foods containing lean protein, because thanks to it, satiety remains for up to 6 hours.
- Temperature indicator.
It is common for calories to radiate heat. If the thermometer reading is below the standard 36.6, a hunger signal is generated in the brain to replenish thermal energy through food.
- Hormonal background.
Many experiments have proven that lack of energy provokes the formation of a neurotransmitter substance. The hormone excites nerve impulses that transmit a command to the brain about the need to eat.
Additionally, norepinephrine is responsible for replenishing energy reserves, and serotonin is responsible for satiation of the “happiness hormone”.
Even despite the fact that the feeling of hunger is a complex biochemical process, scientists have been able to develop effective methods for deceiving hunger.
Reminder
Psychologists believe that you can develop the habit of eating moderately in three weeks of daily training. One of the most effective ways is to remember the true purpose of things and influence your own subconscious! To do this, you need to hang “reminders” wherever you need to develop new habits, for example, on a carafe of water! A note with the following content is suitable for the decanter: “2 liters a day is your norm,” for the refrigerator: “Why are you opening me, look what time it is!” The vegetable compartment can be decorated with a sign: “Weight Loss Products,” and the candy box can be called “Excess Fat.” Give everything that surrounds you honest names, and the subconscious will very soon get used to the true purpose of food and household items.
