The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat

by Dr Stephan Guyenet

Some foods are nevertheless more fattening than others, but this appears to be primarily because they coax us to eat more calories, not because they have a special effect on our metabolic rate.fn8

The outcome of Foltin’s study was unequivocal: The men ate 40 percent more calories while they were stoned than while they were sober, and their body weights also climbed rapidly. Interestingly, they didn’t overeat at meals, but instead ate more highly palatable sweet snacks, such as candy bars, between meals.

carbohydrate restriction per se isn’t actually the key ingredient in low-carbohydrate diets.fn23,71 Rather, advice to eat a low-carbohydrate diet may be effective simply because it’s an easy way to get people to eat high-protein foods and reduce major food reward culprits.