Imagination diet? Visualization can fill you up

Researchers had a group imagine eating 30 M&Ms, one by one. Then they were given a bowl of the candy and were told to help themselves. The group that imagined eating the candy ate half as much as a group who did not imagine eating the food.

"Thinking about consuming food itself elicits a similar response as if we actually eat the food," say Carnegie Mellon University assistant professor Carey Morewedge.

Imagining something pleasant can trigger dopamine in the brain, releasing the same good feeling as actually doing it. Scientists suspect that imagining eating a certain food might trick your brain into thinking you actually ate it.