People often make weight loss more difficult than it has to be. All you have to do is take in fewer calories than you burn. Uh-huh … easier said than done.

If you’re finding it difficult to get control over your food consumption, maybe all you really need is to learn how to show the food who’s boss. Just take the same approach as when your kids are misbehaving, your coworkers are getting on your nerves, your dog is chewing your slippers, and the customer-service rep is trying to deny your refund: Give that food an icy stare.

Crazy as it sounds, the more time you spend looking at your food and savoring the taste and smell of it, the more likely you’ll be to stick to your allotted calories for the day and to lose the weight you’d hoped to lose. Why? Because by stopping to appreciate your food, you’ll eat more slowly. And eating more slowly gives your body time to produce an “anorexigenic gut peptide response”—to release hormones in the stomach that signal your brain you’re full and can stop eating.

The cons of rapid consumption

When you wolf down a loaded hot dog in three bites or slurp down a bowl of pasta without taking a breath, your body doesn’t have time to process what’s happening. The necessary hormones fail to release, your brain never gets the FULL signal … and like the Energizer bunny, you just keep going and going and going.

A group of Greek researchers verified the link between the pace of eating and hormone release in a study published in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology & Metabolism. In separate test sessions, the researchers required healthy male subjects to consume the same meal—10 ounces of ice cream—at different rates of speed. They took blood samples to measure the levels of satiety hormones before the meal and at various intervals after the meal. Those who took longer to eat their ice cream had a more pronounced appetite-reduction response than those who ate quickly.

So if you’re hoping to take off a few extra pounds, those old wives’ tales are true: Don’t eat so fast.