Michael, a renowned psychologist, says that weight regulation is a matter of psychology, not physiology. If losing weight were only about “calories in versus calories out,” then everyone would have gotten the memo and weight loss would be easy. We need to look at this issue through a different lens.
Hunger is a motivated state of mind. When the hunger mood rises, you feel a little thinner and more justified in indulging. When satiety kicks in, you feel heavy and sluggish. A recent study found that most of the calories people consume come from snacks between meals—yet when asked, most deny snacking at all. Hunger is difficult to control because it often operates outside consciousness. This is why obesity is such an intractable problem. The part of the brain responsible for regulating hunger is the hypothalamus. Our neural circuits build our dietary habits, which is why we feel hungry at specific times of the day—not necessarily because our stomach is empty.
The hypothalamus essentially says: You’ve just eaten a burger, and based on past experience your sugar and fat levels will soon rise—so I’m turning off your hunger now. Hunger can be anticipated by your brain, independent of actual stomach fullness. I am not denying the physics—if you consume fewer calories, you will lose weight. But if you explicitly try to restrict calories, you are likely to do the exact opposite the next day. If you burn calories at the gym, you will lose weight, but if you burn fewer calories on another day, that exercise can rev up subtle hunger signals and you may end up overeating.
If losing weight were only about calories, then the message society sends is: Your problem is weak character—it’s your fault. Every time you fall off track, you do more damage than you can undo, and eventually it feels like an inevitable progression. Most doctors and trainers ignore this psychological dimension. I began to suspect that our real problem with obesity is the poisoning of our normal regulatory system—systems that should work in the background without conscious effort.
Three habits consistently disrupt hunger regulation:
Super high death-carb diets – We wake up and eat meals where fat is a tiny portion, and the rest is carbs: sugary morning drinks, afternoon beverages, and dinners loaded with potatoes, pasta, rice, and dessert.
Low-fat obsession – Avoiding butter, eggs, whole milk, and other fats removes the very things that reduce hunger. Without them, hunger spikes.
Chronic dieting – Skipping breakfast, cutting calories aggressively, and eating very small dinners all provoke the “hunger tiger.”
So I tried a simple formula:
First, moderately low in carbs; second, slightly higher in fat; and third, I allowed myself to eat as much as I wanted at each meal. I trusted a counterintuitive psychological principle: if I try to eat less, I will end up eating more. With an “all I want” diet based on moderately fatty, comforting foods, there was no struggle. I simply stepped back and let my brainstem handle things.
I’m not saying my approach is the ultimate truth. My message is that weight regulation is, to a large extent, psychological.
In many ways, the hunger system is like the breathing system—if you consciously try to control your breathing all the time, you will soon get overwhelmed. So it’s better to let the dedicated system that evolved for this job do most of the work. You might be surprised at how well your body self-regulates when you stop micromanaging it.