Worrying less about eating snacks will help you to stay slim

Still feeling guilty about eating that chocolate cake over the weekend? Well, according to psychologists, those who see eating cake as something to celebrate are more likely to stay slim than those who are consumed with guilt after.

 

Researcher at the University of Canterbuy in New Zealand, Dr. Roeline Kuijer and Jessica Boyce, wanted to test whether guilt from eating sweet things undermined a person's determination to succeed in their diet or acted as an incentive to improve.

 

After studying 300 people aged between 18 to 86, they found that those who were consumed with guilt from eating their tasty treat had gained a significant amount of weight than those that didn’t feel guilty: “Associating chocolate cake with guilt was related to an increase in weight. But those who saw it as a celebration were, on average, more successful in losing weight.”

 

The recent findings published in Appetite, an online journal, states that the way we look at cake and sweet things is just as important as the way we count calories.

 

Dr. Kuijer and Boyce found that: “Enjoyment of food is essential to people’s well-being” and Cardiff Metropolitian University psychologist Paul Buckley says that women tend to be affected more by guilty feelings.

 

So the next time you fancy some chocolate cake make sure you enjoy it.