Imagine the possibilities: Researchers say that just thinking about feeling full reduces appetite

For those struggling to stay away from the cookie jar, there may be a zero-calorie way to satisfy your hunger.

Simply thinking back to lunch and imagining you ate twice as much can help limit snacking, scientists suggest.

The memory of a large meal, even if false, can make people think they are full. The researchers fed 151 people a standard-sized lunch before the study began three hours later.

The volunteers were split into five groups, with one group asked to imagine eating twice as much lunch until they were “so full you could barely move”.

Then they gave cookies and they were allowed to eat as much as they wanted. Those who thought they were eating a giant lunch ate nearly a third fewer cookies—about 122 fewer calories.

Dr Joanna Szypula from the University of Cambridge wrote in the journal Appetite: “Thinking about lunch makes you more aware of feeling full.

“And if you imagine them eating twice as much, you can make them eat less even more.”

“This is further proof that the amount we eat can be controlled more by our mind than our stomach.”

Before the study, published in the journal Appetite, people ate rice and sweet and sour vegetables for lunch.

When presented with a selection of chocolate chip cookies, chocolate fingers and digestifs three hours later, people were told this was the case so they could rate them on attributes such as crunchiness and saltiness.

The volunteers thought they were helping the researchers understand how mood affects the taste of cookies, but the researchers secretly wanted to see how many of the snacks they ate.

After participants were previously asked to imagine they were eating a lunch that was twice the size, participants ate an average of 51 grams of cookies.

Volunteers who thought they had eaten a giant lunch ate almost a third fewer cookies – about 122 fewer calories

This was far less than the 75g of cookies consumed by two groups of people who were asked to perform an unrelated task – look at a picture of spaghetti rings or stationery and imagine them moving around on a plate.

Other strategies, such as remembering lunch and thinking about how it moves on a plate, or remembering lunch in detail, including actions of chewing and swallowing, did not significantly reduce biscuit intake.

But people who thought they ate twice as much at lunch ate about four and a half fewer chocolate fingers, a little more than two fewer chocolate chip cookies, or one and a half fewer digestive crackers.

The tactic worked so well that some said they felt a little uncomfortable after thinking they were eating a very large lunch.

They listened to a less than two-minute recording with instructions that included: “Remember the portion size of rice and sauce you were given. Now imagine if it was twice as big.

“Take a few seconds to imagine this. Now imagine eating both servings of rice and sauce.

“Imagine you are physically busy eating, chewing and swallowing.

“Remember how you felt after eating your rice. Imagine feeling very full, so full that you could barely move.”

Dr Szypula said: “The next goal of our research is to find out whether remembering the last meal and imagining that they had a bigger lunch can actually help people lose weight.”