Do you have trouble losing weight? Do you have no motivation to lose weight? Most of us do wish to achieve our ideal bodies but we often underestimate the amount of effort requires to get there.  Cutting out your favorite foods, like fatty pizza, burgers or creamy pasta requires a lot of mental will. The answer to helping you eat less or perhaps enjoy a new diet is walnuts!

What do walnuts contain?

Walnuts have a unique form of vitamin E. Walnuts are high in vitamin E in the form of gamma-tocopherol, however the usual form of vitamin E would be the alpha-tocopherol. Aside from this unusual form studies have proven that this form of vitamin E can provide significant protection from heart problems.

Walnuts are also a great source of omega-3 fatty acids, these acids are hard to find or obtain because your body can’t make them.  Fatty acids are heart healthy monosaturated fats and are the good type of fat which helps lower a lot of illnesses such as heart disease, depression, dementia and even arthritis.

Studies on walnuts

A study published in Daibetes, Obesity, and Metabolism conducted by five researchers from the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston have found an intriguing effect of consuming walnuts. The researchers are Olivia M. Farr Ph.D., Dario Tuccinardi M.D., Jagriti Upadhyay M.D., Sabrina M. Oussaada, and Christos S. Mantzoros M.D., D.Sc., Ph.D.

They first randomly chose ten hospitalized patients with obesity and had them take either a smoothie with 48 grams of walnuts or similar smoothie without walnuts for five days. After a month of having the patients return to their original diets, the patients who first started with walnut smoothies were given the ones without walnuts and vice versa.

At the beginning of the study, the researchers measured each patient’s brain activity using a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine or fMRI. They also did the same after the 5 day smoothie diet to see how it affected them. During the last test the researchers showed the patients different pictures of food from highly desirable ones to the less desirable food, and before each fMRI scan they were also completed visual analog scales or VAS to measure how hungry or full the patients felt.

Astoundingly, they were able to confirm two major findings. The first was after the patients that had the walnut smoothie diet, reported feeling less hungry than after the non-walnut smoothie diet. This is basically a great finding as it can help you lose weight, it seems that walnuts are associated with feelings of fullness.

The second finding was when the patients showed differences in their brain activity when they were shown the desirable food.

To be specific, the right insula of the brain became more active, these parts are responsible for your satisfaction and inhibition or your self-consciousness. Thus, this result made the patients less excited when seeing desirable food.

In conclusion, there are lots of great health benefits of eating walnuts in general and adding walnuts to your diet it will have a positive effect.