Bore your way to weight loss? Doctors tell how

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(CBS) What's the secret to weight loss? Some say diet and exercise, others point to medication, surgery, or hormone treatments. But a new study suggests if you really want to lose weight, boredom may a good bet.

Researchers from the University of Buffalo School  say eating the same thing every day can reduce a person's calorie intake in as little as a week. How can meal monotony cut calories?

The researchers say it's the same reason addicts need higher doses of drugs to chase their high. Repeated exposure to the same thing eventually leads to a decreased response, a phenomenon known as habituation. But no study has looked at whether food habituation would decrease how many calories a person ate, until now.

For the study, published in the August issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, researchers put 32 women, half of whom were obese, on a not-so-healthy diet of macaroni and cheese. Women were randomly assigned to eat mac and cheese every day or once a week. By the end of the study, both obese and nonobese women who had a daily mac-attack consumed fewer calories than women who ate it once a week - those women actually consumed more calories.

The study "provides a very interesting new piece to the obesity puzzle by suggesting that meal monotony may actually lead to reduced calorie consumption," Dr. Shelley McGuire, an associate professor of nutrition at Washington State University and a spokesperson for the American Society for Nutrition, told LiveScience.

The researchers still have many questions before getting behind a boredom diet. For example, how similar must foods be to cause habituation? Will a person habituate to different kinds of pizza? Can this theory really help people lose weight?

In an accompany editorial published in the same journal, the authors write that reducing the variety of food options at school cafeterias might be a good start.

[Misle_Farhat]

I read a study that said boredom increases snacking, which increases pooping, which increases the amount of sewage flowing all over the place, with not a single African Violet to show for it.

crafty candi is a stripper's name.

[bonzothemonkey]

The final paragraph about "lessening the food options" in school cafeterias might have some validity, but only (and I stress only) if the remaining options are power packed, nutritionally sound foods that have been properly cooked. In other words, don't run to your school board and make the suggestion that food options be cut unless you also "demand" that what remains to be be eaten is a distinct nutritional improvement!

[formrusmcsgt]

I wrestled in high school.

Before a meet, we'd be put o a Pepsi and peanuts diet to drop weight to wrestle in a lighter class.

Day 1, you eat your fill. Day 2, not so much and by day 3, you dan't want squat.

I believe it works for thos who have the determination to make it work.

But that can be said about any diet......

[stuart116]

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[NewsScanner247]

I tried it with ice cream about 10 years ago. It was called the ice cream diet.

I lost 50 pounds and have been a "normal" weight ever since. I eat the same thing almost every day for brekky, the same things for lunch nearly every day and a healthy variety of stuff now for dinner. I eat dessert about 2 or 3 times a week.

Nothing tastes as good as being healthy looks!