Who among us has not had this moment?
That kind of intimate teta-teta with the nutritional labels, trying to discern, are you good or
are you bad?
But here's the thing you probably haven't considered.
Labels are not just labels, they evoke a set of beliefs.
That's Aliyah Krum.
See, Krum had spent years studying the placebo effect.
And she figured that food labels might work the same way.
And so to test her idea, Krum created a huge batch of milkshakes.
And then labeled it in two very different ways.
Then, as people drank the milkshakes, she had nurses monitor their levels of this hormone
called garellen.
People in the medical field call it the hunger hormone.
Basically, when you have not eaten anything, garellen levels in the stomach rise, which
signals to the brain that it is time now to seek out food.
But after that rise, say you have a big meal.
Garellen levels are going to drop a lot.
And what that does is it signals to the mind, you've had enough here, you know, and I'm
going to start revving up the metabolism so we can burn the calories that were just ingested.
But Krum discovered that those who believed they were drinking the indulgent shake responded
as if their bodies had eaten three times more.
So what people believed about their milkshake came true.
If they thought it was fattening, they felt they'd eaten more and their digestion was
affected.
Their garellen levels dropped three times more.
So to summarize, you may be able to change your metabolism with your mind.
So in theory, if you want to lose weight, you could try eating healthy food with an
indulgent mindset, you'd feel fuller and your metabolism would increase.
And if diet products actually wanted to help you lose weight, they'd advertise as fattening,
not fat-free.
We have this very simple metabolic science calories in, calories out.
And I don't, I think that we haven't given enough credit to the role of our beliefs in
determining our physiology, our reality.
