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Doughnuts in the office? Tell yourself you'll just have one later.
By Stephanie Pappas
LiveScience
If a forbidden doughnut is tempting you to break your diet, tell yourself you'll have a bite later — just don't specify when.
That strategy makes it less likely you'll go on a doughnut-eating spree, according to new research presented here last week at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. Unlike simply delaying gratification ("I'll wait until dessert"), promising yourself a temptation at a nebulous later date can actually decrease the amount of your ultimate consumption of that temptation.
"It really keeps the temptation at arm's length," said study researcher Nicole Mead, a psychologist at the Catolica-Lisbon School of Business and Economics in Portugal.
In a series of experiments, Mead and her colleagues found that this postponement strategy neither encourages guilt-ridden indulgence in an unhealthy treat nor does it encourage painful abstinence (which all too often leads to later bingeing). In one experiment, the researchers provided volunteers, who were completing various tasks in the lab, with bowls of M&Ms. Some students were told to eat the M&Ms if they wanted, some were told to avoid eating them, and a third group was told that they could eat the M&Ms later, if they felt like it.
At the end of the experiment, after the students could assume the researchers were no longer interested in them, the psychologists brought back the M&M bowls. The students who had snacked on the treats to their satisfaction earlier ate 5.19 grams of the candies (in addition to what they'd eaten already). Those who were deprived of M&Ms earlier went wild, eating 9.81 grams. In comparison, the postponement group ate 5.08 grams, the least of all three groups.
"Participants in the 'don't eat' condition ate practically double the amount of M&Ms" as those in the "wait until later" condition, Mead wrote in an email to LiveScience.
Not only that, she said, but the experiment had real-world implications right away. Participants who had been forbidden from eating chocolate at first in the experiment ate chocolate on average 4.48 times in the week following the experiment, and participants who had been able to eat M&Ms at will ate chocolate 3.18 times on average in the next week. But participants in the "wait until later" condition ate chocolate only 1.15 times, on average, over the next week.
"What this means is that postponement has real implications for everyday consumption," Mead said. "It encourages self-control."
In another experiment, the researchers extended the findings to the real world, giving potato chips to 105 students at a Netherlands high school. The students were divided into the same groups as in the M&M study. And this time, an additional group of students could choose between the three eating plans.
The researchers then tracked how many chips the students ate over the next seven days. Just as in the lab, students who put off eating the chips until later ended up eating the least, and didn't compensate by overeating other snack foods, Mead said. Best of all, the strategy worked whether chosen or assigned. [7 Diet Tricks That Really Work]
"It's a cooling-off strategy," Mead said.
Most likely, postponing a treat until an unspecified later time helps get people over the hump of strong temptation, said Florida State University psychologist Roy Baumeister, who studies willpower but was not involved in Mead's research.
"You need the resistance at the moment of peak desire, then the peak desire moment passes," Baumeister said.
It's not clear whether using the postponement strategy would work as a weight-loss method, Mead said, as focusing on the dieting aspect of postponement might, ironically, keep the temptation in your mind, where you have to fight it. (Research published in the journal Science in 2010, however, showed that fantasizing about a particular food could actually help you resist eating that food.)
But passing on the desired treat once might even revamp a person's self-image, Mead said. A person who turns down M&Ms in the moment might start to think of themselves as someone who doesn't even like M&Ms all that much. The next time the opportunity comes around, it may be easier to turn down the chocolates again.
"It seems that every time they encounter it again, they desire it less and less," she said.
The trick, Mead warned, is not to promise yourself the treat at a specific time. In one lab study with cookies as a temptation, the participants who had to put off eating the cookies until the end of the study ate just as much as those who got to give into temptation earlier.
"If you make it specific, then you're probably going to engage in that consumption," Mead said.
Try this out sometime today. We'd love to hear how it worked. Tell us here, or on our Facebook page.
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This works with smoking, too.
That never worked for me with smoking, but I'll take a stab at it for snacking. It occurs to me that this strategy would be most brilliant when utilized by parents of toddlers who tend to overeat junk food. If it were ethical to do so, I'd say study toddlers under the same conditions and see what happens.
Nine grams of M&Ms is going wild?
This strategy has worked for me over a year with donuts. I love them, but when I am about to stop in @ the donut shop, I tell myself I'll do it another day. I didn't know this behavior was something is being studied. It works! No donuts in about 3 months and it will be a long time before I have 1 or 2.
Exactly how is exercising yer free will and choosing not to eat junk food a new secret?
Interesting study.... but now here I sit at 12:30 AM trying to think where I can get a doughnut NOW.
Interesting. Worth a try.
I won't stop for fast food unless I've gone cycling and burned a lot of calories that day. Sure cuts down the Winter weight gain.
kind of like the " just say no," Nancy Reagan concept regarding drug addiction. that worked pretty well, NOT.
Yeah, I always just tell myself I'll grab a crack hit a little later, works like a charm.
I have had a weight problem all my life. Although my parents had junk food in the house, I rarely at it. When I went to college I never bought it. When I was raising my family I never bought it, except for a special occasion like a party. I am now retired and my weight is very reasonable and to this day, I do not buy it or have it around the house. America is obese because people but junk food for their kids and themselves. When I was raising my kids I could tell who was going to be obese as an adult by what they brought to preschool for lunch. Its a no-brainer. Do not buy chips, candy and other junk food and you won't have ti around to eat.
Refined carbohydrates and animal proteins are not food any more than alcohol is. The proper amount of diary and meat to eat each day is zero. I know if everyone followed this advice it would cost a lot of people their jobs - so would people not smoking.
Apparently you neither understand nor realize, that science has repeatedly proven beyond any doubt that human beings are not designed to subsist on a purely vegetarian diet. Our teeth, our digestive systems, and our brains are simply not able to extract all of the necessary nutrients for survival or growth from such a limited diet. We are, anthropologically, omnivores, capable of consuming both plant and animal matter.
Your new-age, politically-oriented post is a joke to anyone who thinks critically. There is considerable scientific evidence that proves this.
Double post error.
There are many people who cannot tolerate grains. Google wheat intolerance and wheat allergy and gluten sensitivity and learn a bunch about your misguided notions of what others should consume.
And for me, I personally choose not to eat my diary, but I do like dairy. Paper just doesn't work for me.
Everything in moderation so said my dad. Most of you do know that the one person that you just can't stand at a party or that you overheard them talking is the one person who has lost weight. It just drives me nuts because they start talking and you just can not get a word in at all. I could lose some weight, 15 would be great. I think that the way to do it is moderation. And not to talk to everyone about it. The more you talk about it the more you are trans fixed on any food in general, and it can make it worse...
This advice is something that I have used in the past and it can be helpful at times but it isnt really a good answer to the challenges of maintaining a healthy diet. It is more like a small tool that can be helpful once in awhile.
What is so hard about just not eating something like that? Just don't buy it in the first place then you won't be tempted. Sounds like a concept no one has ever heard of before ha
The easiest way to avoid temptation is not to buy it in the first place.
Some good info, but establishing the right methods to solve a stubborn weight problem is not that simple. Please read my article about how to kill cravings and other behavioral strategies:
William Anderson, LMHC, author of 'The Anderson Method -Secrets of Permanent Weight Loss'
Yeah, I've found this works for cigarettes too. I don't immediately smoke in response to a craving, I usually put it off for a bit and half the time i get distracted and the craving passes before I get around to it. Also sometimes I just hold the cigarette and fondle it without lighting it. You ca do this indoors at a bar, say, a tot of times it's not the nicotine you're after it's the dopamine response.