Thursday, March 03, 2011

Things They Should Invent: diet machine

The diet machine makes it harder to get at foods you shouldn't be eating and easier to get at foods you should be eating. If you want to eat a food you shouldn't be eating, you have to put a request into the machine. The machine then gives you instructions to eat some specific healthy food. After you've eaten the healthy food, you have to put in a second request for the unhealthy food. Then there's a 20 minute countdown (because apparently it takes 20 minutes between when the food enters our mouths and the feeling of fullness reaches our brains. After the countdown, the machine doesn't beep or anything. It just sits there quietly. If you still want the unhealthy food, you have to remember to go and put in a request a third time. Then it will release the lock on the food.

For example, suppose you're craving fries. You request fries, and the machine tells you to eat a serving of vegetables and drink a glass of water. (The vegetables and water aren't locked up by the machine and you can nibble on them whenever you want.) Then, if you're still hungry, you put in a second request and the machine tells you to wait 20 minutes. Then, after 20 minutes, you put in a third request and it releases the fries. But, of course, it's not like the fries are all sizzling hot. You still have to turn on the oven and cook them.

So ultimately what the machine does it reduces ease and impulsiveness of eating things you're not supposed to. No, I haven't the slightest idea how to actually make a device like that work.

1 comment:

laura k said...

It's a great idea. I think a key to battling a lot of unhealthy habits may be slowing down the impulse.

I used to be addicted to weighing myself, part of an overall eating disorder type of thing. At first I put the scale on a top shelf in the closet that was very inconvenient for me. For a long time I climbed up to get it, but it was still useful to keep it up there. It helped make the act of weighing myself more conscious.