The Hungry Brain: Outsmarting the Instincts That Make Us Overeat

by Dr Stephan Guyenet

High-reward foods tend to increase food intake and adiposity, while lower-reward foods tend to have the opposite effect. This suggests a weight management “secret” you’ll rarely find in a diet book: eat simple food. The reason you’ll rarely find it in a diet book is that, by definition, lower-reward food is not very motivating. It doesn’t get us excited about a diet, and it doesn’t make books fly off the shelves. We want to hear that we can lose weight while eating the most delicious food of our lives, and the weight-loss industry is happy to indulge us. The truth is that there are many ways to lose weight, but all else being equal, a diet that’s lower in reward value will control appetite and reduce adiposity more effectively than one that’s high in reward value. The trick, as with all diets, is sticking with it, because just as the set point can go down, it can go right back up if you return to your former eating habits. And that means designing an eating plan you can live with for the long haul. For most people, a “bland liquid diet” like those I described isn’t a viable long-term solution, but keeping added fats, sugars, salt, and calorie-dense highly rewarding foods to a modest level may be.