Jim Katsoulis argues that indifference is the most effective emotion for losing weight. He describes how mentally adopting "I don't care" toward trigger foods like ice cream keeps your body calm and reduces cravings. Practicing this mental disengagement over several days trains your mind and body to respond differently.
Chapters
The emotion that makes you lose weight. There is one emotion above all others that is the most useful in actually losing weight. And once you understand how to feel this emotion and attach it to the foods that have been sabotaging your weight loss, everything changes. So what this emotion is, is indifference. So let's just use ice cream, for example. But imagine that ice cream was in front of you and you just didn't care. Physiologically, you just stayed calm and relaxed. Mentally, you just said, so what? I don't care. I don't really even like eating that. You know, when I eat it, I get kind of phlegmy. It's really sweet. You know, it's not good for my weight. It's not good for my health. I just, I don't really like it. Now, again, you're pretending, but this is something you've never pretended before. But if you do this for a couple of days in a row, what you're going to do is you're going to train your mind and body to start thinking and responding to that ice cream differently than you have in the past. And of course, you can do this with any food that you're struggling with, but it's going to make you feel much different and much more in control of your ability to eat the way you want to eat.