Dr. Jud Brewer ’96 has a tip for anyone trying to white knuckle their way to healthier eating or weight loss: Willpower doesn’t work.
Brewer, a psychiatrist and neuroscientist, is director of research and innovation at Brown University’s Mindfulness Center. He studies how to use mindfulness to treat addictions and kick habits, whether smoking, anxiety or overeating. Rather than trying to resist unhealthy impulses, he says, we can train our brains to become “curiously aware” of how indulging them feels – and notice when that behavior isn’t enjoyable or even necessary.
Brewer, a psychiatry professor at Brown's Warren Alpert Medical School, shares his research in his latest book, The Hunger Habit: Why We Eat When We’re Not Hungry and How to Stop.
PAW spoke with Brewer about diets, his eating mantra, and an enduring, albeit unappetizing, Princeton food memory.
We all know the basics: Eat when you’re hungry, stop when you're full. So why don’t we?
That’s literally the billion-dollar question. It comes down to this: Our feeling body is much stronger than our thinking brain. Yet we think, “Oh, I just need to come up with the right formula.” So if you ask yourself, “Why can’t I just think my way out of this mess?” the bottom line is that’s not how our brains work. And that’s where willpower comes in. From a neuroscience standpoint, the equations for forming and breaking a habit don’t include willpower at all. They’re all about reward value. We set the reward value for a behavior. We set that as a habit so we can make decisions quickly throughout the day. Habits are automatic behaviors. You have to tap into that equation to change a habit. And there is one way to do that, which is through awareness.
What if someone thinks, “I am aware. I’m aware of trying not to eat a lot of bad carbs.” Is dieting necessary or is awareness enough?
It really depends on the person, but I can give some general guidelines. If people only focus on the diet, on the “what I should eat,” I say good luck because they’ve probably tried everything before, and the diet industry preys on people looking for the newest thing because the last thing has failed. That’s not to say that focusing on what we eat isn’t helpful. But if we don’t focus on the underlying mechanism, focusing on what we eat ultimately will fail for most people.
The best place to start is learning how our brains work, focusing on the mechanism of what it feels like when we eat certain foods and amounts. We can leverage the strength of our brain and our body because they’re connected. Our body is giving signals to our brain saying, “Hey, that’s too much,” or, “Hey, that’s not actually that rewarding.” I've had tons of people go through our program and say, “All I did was focus on that, and I’ve lost weight because I realized I just habitually overeat.”
Tell us about your mantra of “Why? What? How?”
The “why, what, how” helps us pay attention at different steps in the process. When we’re about to eat out of habit — whether it’s to overeat, eat junk food, stress eat, eat out of boredom, eat because we’re at the movie theater, whatever — that’s where the why comes in. We can pause, bring awareness to our situation, and ask, “Why am I reaching for food?” That helps us ask ourselves, “Is it a habit, or is it hunger?” For the what, we then ask, “If I’m hungry, what am I reaching for? Am I reaching for some sugary snack or processed food, or am I reaching for something that's actually going to be nutritious and keep my energy levels and mood high?” The why helps us start to link up, “When I eat this type of food, I feel like this.” Then we ask, “How am I eating? Am I paying attention, or am I just eating mindlessly?” If we pay attention to how we eat, we can savor what we're eating and ask, “Does this really taste good or not?” We can also see how much is enough.
Some people take prescription drugs such as Ozempic and Wegovy for weight loss. Is mindful eating still necessary for them?
Well, those medications are an ongoing experiment. There were a number of weight loss drugs that were heralded as miracles and then pulled from the market because five years in, they found they were really dangerous. Fen-Phen is a good example of that. I’m not saying that’s the case for these medications. Hopefully we’ve learned something over the years. But learning how our brain works is helpful for everyone. If somebody wants to use this in conjunction with one of those medications, great. They’re going to work together. The other thing I’ve seen clinically is that, for some people, these medications work pretty well, and then they stop working. So, it’s also helpful to build something up that’s not dependent on something external.
What’s a favorite food or eating memory from your Princeton days?
My sophomore year, I lived in Holder. There were four of us who played what we called “the crazy fluids game.” At the end of the meal — it was usually dinner — we would fill one of those 8-ounce juice glasses with anything that was fluidlike, or a combination thereof. We mixed milk and orange juice, so the milk curdled, soda, hot sauce, random liquids from the salad bar, and anything else that met the inspiration of the moment. Then we’d play a foosball game, and whichever team lost had to either drink it or pour it on their heads.
That sounds so gross.
Yeah, it was pretty gross, and it was very motivating to win the game. I got good at foosball very quickly.
Interview conducted and condensed Katherine Shaver ’91.