Think yourself thin?

Like most mornings, I was tuned into NPR before heading to work and listened in on a program on the placebo effect and its ties to weight loss. Alix Speigel was speaking to Harvard psychologist Ellen Langer who recently published a study in which she experiments with weight loss using the placebo effect on hotel maids. First, Langar conducts a survey and surprisingly finds that more than a third of the maids polled don't consider themselves physically active, even though their job require them to perform demanding physical tasks all day long.

When she informs half of the group that they are in fact exercising far beyond the recommendations of the U.S. Surgeon General and of how many calories are burned during each working day, a wonderful thing happens. The group that is informed actually looses weight! When she goes back a month later she finds that these maids had decreased their systolic blood pressure, and waist-to-hip ratio. There was no change in the uninformed group.

So, according to Langar, "if you believe you are exercising, your body may respond as if it is. It's the same as if you believe you are getting medication when you are actually getting a sugar pill — your body can sometimes respond as if a placebo is actually working".

Here is a link to the program in case you gotta hear this for yourself: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=17792517

9:15am

3oz Baked Salmon

1 grapefruit

1 cup of Coffee w/ cream (fat source)

=2 Blocks

12:45pm

1 Hard boiled egg, 1 egg white

Large Spinach salad with almonds & pinenuts

1 Tangerine

=2 Blocks