The Leaning Caveman

 
 
Following up on the Sensa experiment, here's my result and what I learned.  Sensa definitely heightens the taste sensation that you get from food.  I can see where that will increase satiety in some people but it did nothing for me.  In the course of my little experiment I lost exactly 0 pounds.  Zilch. Nada.

There's a couple of issues in the experiment design that highlight the limitations of Sensa for someone that is already on a diet.
  1. If you're already restricting your portions then Sensa doesn't help you eat less.  I never put enough food on my plate to get fully much less overly full.
  2. Sensa doesn't work with moist food.  I eat a lot of foods that could be considered moist; ie. chili or dishes that are covered in salsa, tomato sauce or something of that ilk.  The Sensa crystals just melt away when they hit something wet.

So to address the number one question I've gotten so far, "Will Sensa work for me?" The answer really is that it depends.  If you don't currently restrict intake then there is a chance it will work.  If most of what you eat is sauce free, there's a chance it will work for you.  If either of these are true though, then Sensa is probably not the best option for you in my opinion.

All of this begs the question for me though of what will work?  How do we help people lose weight when they have the best of intentions?  I've been looking hard at that, diligently searching Medline and other research sites and think I may have an answer that is relevant.
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Not to be too punny here but if I'm going to give Sensa a fair shake in this experiment, I have to remember to use it every meal  Since my last check in, that has not been the case unfortunately. So consider today a restart of the sprinkle diet after a brief pause to let my taste buds reset.

All that being said, I can share my initial impression of Sensa.  The long and short of it is that using this stuff is like eating in technicolor.  The scents and tastes of what you're eating are greatly heightened and the amount of satisfaction that you get from flavorful food is absolutely ridiculous.  That being said though, I did not really notice it on bland items such as oatmeal.
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If you're anything like me, you've probably made a resolution or two this new year even if you don't want to admit it to anyone else.  One of my resolutions is to finally hit my target weight and keep it there.  Of course when you make a resolution that involves dieting, sensory acuity kicks in and then suddenly you notice every since ad message that involves losing weight.  I swear that in the past two weeks I have literally seen 1,000 pieces of advertising between TV, Internet and print.

One of them that has really caught my attention though is the so-called sprinkle diet which is put out by this company called Sensa.  Apparently this neurologist has determined that if he can adequately manipulate your senses of taste and smell then you'll reach a point of satiety more quickly and lose weight.  To that end he has two powders (one for savory and one for sweet) that you sprinkle onto whatever it is that you going to eat.  No other change required.

In a double blind study with 2630 participants, the Sensa users lost an average of 30.6 pound in six months!  This compares to the placebo group that lost only 2 pounds.  I say that is impressive.  Which leads to our experiment; over the next 2 months I am going to try sprinkling, track it here and see what it does. Is it for real?  Is it a scam?  I have no idea but we're certainly going to find out.

Start day is tomorrow. 
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