Catching up on my feeds after a weekend sleepover with friends, I read about a fascinating gentleman, Seth Roberts, who is a psychology professor at Berkeley with a penchant for experimenting on himself. Part of his work involves an unusual diet approach:
[Roberts] had by now come to embrace the theory that our bodies are regulated by a “set point,” a sort of Stone Age thermostat that sets an optimal weight for each person. This thermostat, however, works the opposite of the one in your home. When your home gets cold, the thermostat turns on the furnace. But according to Roberts’s [sic] interpretation of the set-point theory, when food is scarcer, you become less hungry; and you get hungrier when there’s a lot of food around.
So Roberts tried to game this Stone Age system. What if he could keep his thermostat low by sending fewer flavor signals? One obvious solution was a bland diet, but that didn’t interest Roberts. (He is, in fact, a serious foodie.) After a great deal of experimenting, he discovered two agents capable of tricking the set-point system. A few tablespoons of unflavored oil (he used canola or extra light olive oil), swallowed a few times a day between mealtimes, gave his body some calories but didn’t trip the signal to stock up on more. Several ounces of sugar water (he used granulated fructose, which has a lower glycemic index than table sugar) produced the same effect. (Sweetness does not seem to act as a “flavor” in the body’s caloric-signaling system.)
A longer whitepaper about Mr. Roberts’ research is available: What makes food fattening?
Most interesting to me so far is the suggestion that sweets can provide calories without triggering the desire for more food. Does this explain some people (like my younger self) who can lead sedentary lives and not care about what or how much they eat?
