BEST DIET : LOSE WEIGHT WITH BEST TRICK

Imagine you could eat less, simply by thinking about eating! A new study published in Science finds just that: people who imagined themselves repeatedly indulging in sweet or salty treats ended up eating less of the actual foods than people who didn’t visualize eating the same foods or thought about them only fleetingly.

The study is based on the principle of habituation — that repeated exposure to a stimulus reduces people’s response to it. It explains why the 10th bite of pumpkin pie isn’t as desirable as the first. And why chronic alcoholics need more alcohol to feel drunk. “People habituate to a wide range of stimuli, from the brightness of a light to their income,” the study’s authors write. (More on Time.com: 5 Ways to Get Oatmeal in Your Diet, Deliciously)

What the authors wondered, however, is why, when it comes to food, does the imagination usually have the opposite effect — the mere notion of a piece of pie tends to whet the appetite, rather than suppressing it. “If you look at the literature on imagination and eating, thinking about [a specific food] leads people to desire it more,” says lead author Carey Morewedge, assistant professor of social and decision sciences at Carnegie Mellon University. “But when you eat a lot of a food, you desire it less. What’s the difference between these two experiences?”

The key may lie in the repetition. For the study, Morewedge and colleagues conducted five different experiments with 51 participants in each. In the first experiment, people were divided into three groups and asked to imagine performing 33 consecutive tasks: inserting 30 quarters into a laundry machine, then eating three M&Ms; inserting three quarters into a laundry machine, then eating 30 M&Ms; or inserting 33 quarters into a laundry machine. Then, all groups were given a real bowl of M&Ms from which they were allowed to sample freely.

The researchers found that the people who imagined eating 30 M&Ms ate about half as much candy in real life, compared with the other two groups. There was no difference in actual consumption between those who imagined eating three M&Ms or no M&Ms. (More on Time.com: Mind Over Matter: Can Zen Meditation Help You Forget About Pain?)

It doesn’t take much imagination to conceive that these findings could aid the development of real-world behavioral techniques for dieters — and anyone else dealing with craving — who need help fighting the urge for more. Conversely, the findings could be applied to help people reduce phobic-responses to fear-inducing stimuli like, say, spiders. “I think this is a very nice study, an impressive demonstration that shows the power of imagery, the power of imagination,” says Kent Berridge, professor of psychology and neuroscience at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, who was not involved with the research.

Researchers repeated the M&M experiment, this time combining visualizations of eating either M&Ms or cheddar cheese cubes. The goal was to test whether the imaginary eating resulted in habituation to specific foods or to a more general feeling of “fullness” that resulted in less consumption. As expected, people who imagined eating 30 cheese cubes ate less actual cheese than those imagining eating three, when presented with the real food. But people who imagined eating either three or 30 M&Ms showed no difference in later cheddar-cheese consumption.

This might help explain why you can be sure you couldn’t eat another bite of Thanksgiving turkey — but still have plenty of room for pumpkin pie. (More on Time.com: Special Report: Overcoming Obesity)

In yet another iteration of the experiment, people were asked to think about either eating M&Ms or moving an equal amount of the candies one-by-one into a bowl. In this case, researchers found, the more people imagined moving M&Ms (30 times versus three), the more M&Ms they ate in real life. But in the imagined-eating group, the more people visualized consuming the candy, the less they ate later. “You have to be careful not to just think about the taste and smell, and what the food looks like,” says Morewedge, explaining that this kind of “priming” can increase desire for it. “You have to think about actually chewing biting and swallowing food repeatedly for the effect to work.”

Of course, for dieters or others who battle cravings, this presents a dilemma. Once the thought of a food has triggered immediate desire, it can be hard to think your way out of it. “There’s a danger if you just think of the food and the flavor, it will prime you and make you want it more,” Berridge agrees.

In drug recovery programs, this is why addicts are told to avoid “people, places and things” that might remind them of drugs and set off an urge to use. To quash the craving once it’s set in, however, addiction experts advise “thinking it through” — that is, considering the negative consequences, not just the momentary high, associated with drug use. Perhaps, based on the new study, recovery treatment could include asking addicts to think about the details of drug-taking over and over in a repetitive loop; but whether that technique could habituate people to drugs as well as to food remains to be studied. (More on Time.com: Top 10 Most Dangerous Foods)

Morewedge is now seeking funding for a similar study to test the power of imagination over nicotine cravings in smokers. He and his colleagues are also currently running a variation of the original research, comparing participants with various levels of hunger to see how that affects the results.

Morewedge’s research also sheds light on the way desire works and how the brain distinguishes between “liking” and “wanting” a food — or any experience, thing or person. In a final experiment, participants were asked to rate how much they liked cheddar cheese before and after imagining eating three or 33 cheese cubes; they were also asked to play a computer game in which they could click on an image of a cheese cube to earn cheese. Again, people who had imagined eating more cheese clicked less for real cheese, showing that they wanted less of it. However, their ratings of how much they liked cheddar cheese remained the same, before and after.

Berridge notes that in the real world when people eat foods to the point of not wanting it anymore, their liking for the food tends to decline a bit as well. “Where people are loaded with actual food, it suppresses both wanting and liking but wanting goes down further,” he says. “It’s striking in this case that you can lower wanting at all just by imagining food.” (More on Time.com: Overeating: Is It an Addiction?)

In addiction as well, wanting escalates out of proportion to liking: it’s not that the drug or food experience becomes more likeable or feels better and better; instead, desire and craving skyrocket. Ultimately, people find themselves intensely wanting an experience that no longer feels overwhelmingly pleasurable — in fact, it simply feels normal or even sometimes negative. By figuring out exactly how the brain processes these different strands of pleasure and desire, craving may one day be conquered.

Meanwhile, you can try imagining eating Christmas candies and desserts over and over and over, until it feels about as desirable as another rendition of “Feliz Navidad” — and perhaps spare your waistline this holiday season.

More on TIME.com:

How We Get Addicted

Why Parenting is Addictive

Is My Baby Too Fat?

The problem with most health food is that nobody likes it — not least your own stomach. New research suggests that the stomach signals less satisfaction after eating “health food,” regardless of the actual fat and calories consumed. In contrast, foods that people perceive as indulgent and sinful produce a greater sense of fullness and gratification, even if they are actually much lower in calories.

For their study, Yale psychologists led by Alia Crum recruited 46 participants who were told that the researchers were testing the body’s response to two milkshakes that were designed with varying nutritional content. In reality, the two milkshakes were exactly the same, but one was described as being high-fat and containing 620 calories; it was labeled “indulgent” and offering “decadence you deserve.” The other shake was described as low-fat with only 140 calories. Its label promised “guilt-free satisfaction.”

Participants were asked to taste the milkshakes one week apart, so they were unable to directly compare the experiences. Each milkshake actually contained 380 calories.

Blood samples showed that gut levels of ghrelin — a hormone that rises in response to hunger and falls with fullness — declined rapidly when participants believed they were consuming a sumptuous treat. When participants thought they were getting health food, however, ghrelin levels stayed stable, meaning that their bodies did not signal the appropriate feeling of fullness after drinking the shake.

The research offers a possible clue as why diets fail so often: when we believe that we will be deprived by eating food that is lower in calories, our guts will psych us out with more hunger and less satiety.

(More on TIME.com: Bypassing Obesity for Alcoholism: Why Some Weight-Loss Surgeries Increase Alcohol Risk)

It also presents a conundrum for food manufacturers: accurately labeling health food as such may make it less satisfying, but how do you tell consumers that the products have fewer calories without evoking this effect? Maybe food makers’ annoying habit of shrinking packages without telling us may actually serve a good purpose after all.

(More on TIME.com: The Chocolate Milk Wars: A Mom’s Perspective)

The current research was published in the journal Health Psychology.

One pound. That’s it! After eight days of abs-defining crunches, too many push-ups to count, breathless sprints, painful planks, forward lunges, backward lunges, you name it, one measly pound is all I’ve kissed goodbye.

I’m wrapping up Week 2 of a month-long fitness boot camp, which I hastily registered for after realizing that the finger agility necessary to type an article a day does not really qualify as exercise. That, and my jeans felt snug.

The regimen is intense: 45-minute classes four days a week, two cardio workouts on my own and a severely restricted diet that considers carbs the enemy. With that trifecta, I’d expected — hoped! — that at least 3 to 4 lbs. would have melted away.

Maybe, my brother kindly suggested, I’m losing fat and replacing it with muscle. I like that explanation. There’s no question that my abdominal muscles are getting a workout the likes of which they have not experienced since childbirth. I can feel them firming up, the work of hundreds of crunches.

MORE: Study: Cutting Carbs Two Days a Week Is Better than Full-Time Dieting

For an anti-exerciser like me, the classes are actually pretty fun, although “fun” is a relative term in this case. What I mean is that they’re challenging and unpredictable: jumping jacks one day, push-ups another. Because the routines are different each morning, it keeps the class from getting boring. And the group dynamic is invaluable; there’s no way in hell I’d ever manage to “wall-sit” — sliding down a wall until my legs form a 90-degree angle, then extending one leg parallel to the floor as long as possible — if others weren’t there struggling with the same act of self-flagellation. Try it: it’s HARD.

Of course, that’s the point. Boot camp takes its name from the military versions, where — at least in the movies — drill sergeants scream at their hapless charges to move, move, move. My two instructors, Nate and Miles, are far more benevolent. They’re both unnervingly fit, but they don’t make me feel badly that I’m not. When they see I’m struggling, they’ll tactfully hand me a lighter dumbbell or suggest a way to modify a position to make an impossible exercise doable.

And yet, the power of the group persists. I don’t want the one man and half dozen women — many of them a good 10-plus years older than me — whom I met just last week thinking that I’m a wimp. So even when my muscles doth protest, I soldier on. Here’s hoping one pound is only the beginning. Stay tuned for next Friday’s installment.

Bonnie Rochman is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @brochman. You can also continue the discussion on TIME‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

Tired of counting calories? Try counting bites instead. Or just let the Bite Counter do it for you. The “pedometer for eating” developed by two Clemson University researchers is worn like a wristwatch and counts the number of bites user take during each meal. The idea is to help people keep from overindulging.

The device tracks wrist motion to determine both the number and type of bites: it’s designed to know when users have taken a bite of food versus a swig of a drink, and then estimates the number of calories in each mouthful by way of technology similar to that used by exercise equipment to estimate calories burned.

“The device only requires that the user press a button to turn it on before eating and press the button again after the meal or snack is done,” Bite Counter co-creator Adam Hoover said in a statement. “In between, the device automatically counts how many bites have been eaten.”

The Bite Counter was more than 90% accurate in counting bites in lab studies, its creators say. But given that the average bite can consist of anything from broiled salmon to baked Alaska, isn’t it hard to estimate calories accurately? “That’s true,” says the product’s website. “However, the caloric content of a bite averages out over the long term. People also tend to eat the same foods week to week, further stabilizing the calorie/bite relationship.” In addition, according to the website, the calorie-bite relationship can be customized to your particular diet over a weeklong observation period.

MORE: Even a Little Bit of Exercise Goes a Long Way

The Bite Counter doesn’t just tally your calories, it plays disciplinarian too. You can preset a bite limit per meal or per day, so if you find yourself digging into that devil’s food cake a little too deeply after dinner, the device will sound an alarm for every unauthorized bite.

That may not sound like a very pleasant dining experience, but we need this kind of motivation because other weight management programs aren’t helping most people, Bite Counter co-creator Eric Muth said in a statement. “Studies have shown that people tend to underestimate what they eat by large margins, mostly because traditional methods rely upon self-observation and reporting,” he said.

The creators are marketing the device to weight-loss researchers as an alternative to the conventional food diaries and phone interviews used in many studies, since these techniques rely on faulty self-reporting.

For dieters, the Bite Counter allows you to download your eating data to a computer for “long-term analysis and visualization.” It can also be worn anywhere — in restaurants, at work and generally anywhere that people have trouble tracking their calories.

MORE: Are Calorie Counts on Menus Accurate? Not So Much

We haven’t tried the Bite Counter, so we can vouch for its accuracy. And it remains to be seen whether bite count has any real bearing on calorie count or whether counting bites actually helps people lose weight. (If it’s any indication, a recent study on chewing found that people who chewed their food more — and presumably took fewer bites — ate 12% fewer calories that people who chewed less during meals.)

The product’s website also notes that bite counts can be confused by wearers’ non-eating motions, such as gesturing during a meal, using a napkin or adjusting one’s eyeglasses. And of course, it won’t count bites if you eat with your non-dominant hand (i.e., the one on which you aren’t wearing the Bite Counter).

Still, if you’re interested in becoming an early adopter, the Bite Counter is available online for a whopping $799. Its creators hope it will eventually be sold along with other consumer electronics like heart-rate monitors, GPS devices and the like.

Tara Thean is a TIME contributor. Find her on Twitter at @TaraThean. You can also continue the discussion on TIME‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

MORE: Tips for a Healthy, Cancer-Free BBQ

One pound. That’s it! After eight days of abs-defining crunches, too many push-ups to count, breathless sprints, painful planks, forward lunges, backward lunges, you name it, one measly pound is all I’ve kissed goodbye.

I’m wrapping up Week 2 of a month-long fitness boot camp, which I hastily registered for after realizing that the finger agility necessary to type an article a day does not really qualify as exercise. That, and my jeans felt snug.

The regimen is intense: 45-minute classes four days a week, two cardio workouts on my own and a severely restricted diet that considers carbs the enemy. With that trifecta, I’d expected — hoped! — that at least 3 to 4 lbs. would have melted away.

Maybe, my brother kindly suggested, I’m losing fat and replacing it with muscle. I like that explanation. There’s no question that my abdominal muscles are getting a workout the likes of which they have not experienced since childbirth. I can feel them firming up, the work of hundreds of crunches.

MORE: Study: Cutting Carbs Two Days a Week Is Better than Full-Time Dieting

For an anti-exerciser like me, the classes are actually pretty fun, although “fun” is a relative term in this case. What I mean is that they’re challenging and unpredictable: jumping jacks one day, push-ups another. Because the routines are different each morning, it keeps the class from getting boring. And the group dynamic is invaluable; there’s no way in hell I’d ever manage to “wall-sit” — sliding down a wall until my legs form a 90-degree angle, then extending one leg parallel to the floor as long as possible — if others weren’t there struggling with the same act of self-flagellation. Try it: it’s HARD.

Of course, that’s the point. Boot camp takes its name from the military versions, where — at least in the movies — drill sergeants scream at their hapless charges to move, move, move. My two instructors, Nate and Miles, are far more benevolent. They’re both unnervingly fit, but they don’t make me feel badly that I’m not. When they see I’m struggling, they’ll tactfully hand me a lighter dumbbell or suggest a way to modify a position to make an impossible exercise doable.

And yet, the power of the group persists. I don’t want the one man and half dozen women — many of them a good 10-plus years older than me — whom I met just last week thinking that I’m a wimp. So even when my muscles doth protest, I soldier on. Here’s hoping one pound is only the beginning. Stay tuned for next Friday’s installment.

Bonnie Rochman is a reporter at TIME. Find her on Twitter at @brochman. You can also continue the discussion on TIME‘s Facebook page and on Twitter at @TIME.

A new study finds that consuming foods fried in olive or sunflower oils is not linked to an increased risk of heart disease or premature death.

The finding seems counterintuitive since risk factors for heart disease like obesity and high blood pressure and cholesterol have been associated with diets high in fried foods. But the research linking fried food directly with heart disease has been inconsistent to date, so researchers from the Autonomous University of Madrid looked more closely at the connection.

The study’s authors surveyed nearly 41,000 adults between the ages of 29 to 69, asking about their health and eating habits. None of the participants had heart disease at the beginning of the study. Participants were split into four groups according to how much fried food they ate and then monitored for heart disease for 11 years.

People in the lowest consumption group ate about 1.6 ounces of fried food a day. Those in the highest intake group ate 8.8 ounces a day. On average, people consumed just under 5 ounces of fried food a day, which accounted for about 7% of all the food they ate. The participants reported eating foods that were fried in various ways, including deep-fried, pan, battered, crumbed or sautéed.

According to the study published in the BMJ on Tuesday, there were 606 heart-related events and 1,134 deaths during the study follow-up period. When the researchers compared heart disease and death rates to the participants’ diets, they found no link regardless of how much fried food people ate.

This doesn’t mean you should up your French fry consumption. The study was conducted in Spain, where people mostly use heart-healthy olive and sunflower oils in their cooking, both at home and at restaurants. Unlike in the U.S., the study participants were eating fried foods in the context of a healthier Mediterranean diet. And as the study authors noted further, “consumption of fried foods in Spain is not a proxy for fast food intake.” While the Spanish tend not to eat fried snacks that are high in salt and trans fats, in the U.S, these foods make up a significant part of our diet.

“Frying with mainly olive oil or sunflower oil is not associated with a higher risk of coronary heart disease,” the authors concluded, but “frying with other types of fats may still be harmful.”

When it comes to your risk of diabetes, a new study by Harvard researchers suggests that eating less white rice could make a difference.

Each additional daily serving of white rice, a staple of Asian diets, may increase the risk of Type 2 diabetes by 10%, according to the study, which analyzed the results of four previous studies involving 352,384 participants from four countries: China, Japan, U.S. and Australia. Those who ate the highest amounts of white rice had a 27% higher risk of diabetes than those who ate the least, and the risk was most pronounced in Asian people.

The studies followed people for anywhere from 4 to 22 years, tracking their food intake. All the participants were diabetes-free at the beginning of the study.

MORE: Five Ways to Avoid Diabetes — Without Medications

Why white rice may impact diabetes risk isn’t clear, but it may have to do with the food’s high score on the glycemic index (GI) — a measurement of how foods affect blood sugar levels — meaning that it can cause spikes in blood sugar. High GI ranking foods have previously been associated with increased risk of diabetes.

“White rice also lacks nutrients like fiber and magnesium,” says study author Qi Sun, a professor of medicine at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston. “People with high white rice consumption lack these beneficial nutrients and Asian populations consume a lot of white rice. If you consume brown rice instead, you will get these nutrients. There are alternatives.”

But before you swear off white rice for good, the study authors and other nutrition experts caution that it’s not the only culprit in diabetes risk. Rather, a general decrease in physical activity and increase in food consumption may be responsible for the rise in obesity and insulin resistance in Asian countries.

“White rice has long been a part of Asian diets in which diabetes risk was very low,” Dr. David Katz, associate professor of public health at Yale University, told ABC News. “It is white rice plus aspects of modern living — including less physical work — that conspire to elevate the incidence of Type 2 diabetes.”

The authors agree, noting:

…[T]his transition may render Asian populations more susceptible to the adverse effects of high intakes of white rice, as well as other sources of refined carbohydrates such as pastries, white bread, and sugar sweetened beverages. In addition, the dose-response relations indicate that even for Western populations with typically low intake levels, relatively high white rice consumption may still modestly increase risk of diabetes.

MORE: Gains in Muscle Mass May Help Lower Diabetes Risk

Also, according to Sun, white rice is not the only red flag for a diabetes-prone diet. He recommends eating fewer refined carbs overall. “People should try to make a switch from eating refined carbs like white rice and white bread to eating more whole grains. This way, you consume more nutrients and fiber overall.”

For any healthful diet, moderation is key. “I’d tell [patients] what we know for sure,” Keith Ayoob, an associate professor in the department of pediatrics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York City, also told ABC News. “Take steps to keep from becoming overweight, make physical activity a real priority, include some protein and fiber in each meal and snack, and spread your calories throughout the day.”

The study was published online in the British Medical Journal.