Swallow a Lie & You Could Lose Weight!

Just believe a white lie about your childhood, and you may unlock a key to beat the battle of the bulge.

Indeed, a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggests that implanting unpleasant, false childhood memories about fattening foods could help you to lose weight.

Researchers led by psychologist Elizabeth F. Loftus of UC Irvine were able to successfully turn off people to strawberry ice cream. Basically, they did this by "brainwashing" the subjects to believe that the food made them sick as children.

(Why the scientists picked strawberry ice cream is beyond me; back in 1998, during my heavy-duty sugar addiction days, I easily could have passed up that dessert any old day, but chocolate fudge ice cream is another story. That was a tough one to pass up!)

The researchers also say they’ve successfully implanted positive opinions about asparagus by convincing the participants that they once loved the vegetable, a compelling Los Angeles Times story by Rosie Mestel pointed out.

Essentially, the study, entitled "False beliefs about fattening foods can have healthy consequences," shows that erroneous childhood memories about a particular food could lead people to avoid that food in adulthood.

Ultimately, the researchers say that "these results indicate that we can, through suggestion, manipulate nutritional selection and possibly even improve health."

A couple of major problems exist, though, with this new weight-loss approach. For instance, the scientists couldn’t implant false beliefs about chocolate chip cookies and potato chips.

What good is a weight-loss strategy if it doesn’t work for popular fatty and quickie-carb foods?!

Another dilemma is that Loftus — a distinguished professor of psychology, social behavior and criminology — just doesn’t know how long these fake memories will last.

Loftus, who is most famous for suggesting that recovered memories of childhood sexual abuse were false, told the L.A. Times that the food experiments were the first time she’d explored a positive practical application of memory manipulation.

Other weight-loss experts were intrigued, but skeptical about using implanted memories as a dieting technique, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Some experts have ethical problems with fabricating memories, too. But Loftus has a good retort: "People kind of cringe at the idea that anyone would suggest that they lie to their children, but they do it all the time when they tell them Santa Claus exists and so does the Tooth Fairy."

As far as I’m concerned, this memory-creating sounds like a promising weight loss application. Wouldn’t that be exciting if desperate sugar and quickie-carb addicts could easily learn such a valuable tactic — that is, if it works?

In the meantime, other techniques such as Emotional Freedom Technique, self-hypnosis and positive thinking can work well, too. Find out about my Stop SUGAR SHOCK! Coaching program, where a variety of experts will teach these and other tactics.

Thanks to Anita in my free online KickSugar Group for alerting me to this study.