Here’s something I never heard before: a diet that works in the dark! According to an article I came across on Newsday, a new diet trick is sweeping across Europe. Apparently, you should eat in the dark; i.e., blindfolded. It seems that not seeing your food enables you to eat a lot less than you normally do.
To Eat Blindfolded or Not…
Why the ‘blindfold diet’ works? Some say that because your sense of sight is limited, your other senses including your taste buds are heightened, ergo, you tend to focus more on your food intake and get to savor it more.
Personally, I think the above opinion only stresses the fact that you get to appreciate food more because you don’t literally see it and take it for granted. That reasoning - at least for me - does NOT explain why this would help you in your diet. But this does… could it be that by blindfolding yourself, you now cannot rely on your sense of sight to tell you that you’re full? Let me explain further…
Experts say that it takes about 20 mins for your stomach to produce the hormones that tell your brain your’re full. However, our sense of vision tells us something like this ‘unless that plate is empty, I’m NOT full!’
So by removing our sense of sight, we are FORCED to really pay attention to other ways our bodies tell us we’re full. What do you think? Well, research conducted way back in 2003 seems to agree to this.
According to Swedish study in 2003, subjects who ate while blindfolded ate 24% LESS food than their un-blindfolded counterparts.
I know eating blindfolded takes out a lot of the fun and enjoyment of eating food by why not give it a try? The Newsday article suggests trying it out at a dinner party. It will make for great conversation at least it suggests and I tend to agree.
At the very least, it would be fun to try for two reasons: (1) see if your guests can tell what they’re eating while blindfolded (a great test of who has the best taste buds!); and (2) you can verify if people do eat less or not while blindfolded!
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May 5th, 2009 at 2:10 am
Hmmm. Now that it an idea that i can try out. I wonder at its effectiveness though.