Science of…New Year’s Resolutions!

It’s a new year, a new start, and for many Londoners it’s time for a New Year’s resolution. Thousands across the city have taken the pledge to lose weight and get healthy. London Student spoke to Miguel Alonso Alonso, Instructor in Neurology at Harvard Medical School, whose research is based on eating behaviour and obesity, to find out the secrets of what makes a diet plan successful.

Professor Alonso says that most diets end in failure as dieting “requires big effort”, he goes on to explain: “On a normal day, deciding what to eat is usually pretty easy and far less demanding in terms of effort: we eat what is available, tasty, appealing, or what people we trust or love cook for us. So dieting, a form of goal-oriented behaviour, is hard to maintain over time.”

With a new diet fad surfacing every other week it’s becoming increasingly difficult to pick a good diet plan over those based on ‘junk’ science. “If a diet promises too much, that should raise a red flag,” says Professor Alonso, “people should be very cautious when they hear for the first time about a new diet that looks exciting and magic…  At this point it should be clear to everybody that there is no magic diet or magic pill to lose weight.”

Picking the right diet is only half the battle, many struggle to let go of bad eating habits. What’s the secret to sticking to your new diet? According to a new study from the Harvard Neurology Professor, exercise is more important than initially thought.

The study, published in Obesity Reviews, showed that exercise improves your awareness of being full, reducing the likelihood of overeating during meals, and this awareness can also have longer-term effects on how a person responds to being around food. Exercise can also help suppress impulsive eating urges.  The study draws on past research that has shown exercise creates more connections in the prefrontal part of the brain, improving cognitive functions, which can help you resist ‘forbidden food’ and overcome temptation.

A great diet and exercise plan means very little if you’re not in the right state of mind when making your resolution. Professor Alonso said: “Motivation, attitude and mood are very important. A person who is trying to lose weight should be determined and able to set realistic expectations, have time and energy for this effortful process, and be able to keep a positive attitude to work hard, accept failures and learn new skills.” Your new diet should be less focused on immediate weight loss and more on a gradual lifestyle change. Professor Alonso emphasises the importance of being “long term-oriented”, as previous research has shown this is key to not only losing weight but keeping it off.

Dieting, while a popular resolution, still remains one that most people break. It’s important to remember that dieting requires changing a fundamental aspect of yourself, and this requires a great deal of effort.