Podcast Summary: "How to Stop Fighting With Food & The Science of Making Predictions"

Something You Should Know with Mike Carruthers
Date: February 21, 2026
SYSK Choice

Episode Overview

In this episode, host Mike Carruthers explores two central themes:

1. How to stop fighting with food and overcome habits of eating when not hungry, with expert insight from Dr. Jud Brewer.
2. The science behind making predictions, understanding randomness, and why people are often fooled by coincidences and biases, featuring Kit Yates.

The episode delivers practical, research-backed advice on changing eating habits and provides a fascinating look into how the human brain predicts the future—sometimes badly.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Your Belly Button and Body Language

• [02:10] Mike opens by sharing a body language tip from Janine Driver:
  "When you shift your body so that your belly button is pointing at the person you're talking to, it communicates true interest even more than making eye contact does."
  • If someone’s navel is pointed away from you, they're likely less interested.

2. Why We Eat When We're Not Hungry — with Dr. Jud Brewer

The Roots of Overeating

• [04:50] Dr. Brewer explains that overeating stems from a survival mechanism:
  "One of our most fundamental survival instincts is to eat when we're hungry. It's set up based on reinforcement learning."
• This learning was essential for survival, but our brains now misuse it to eat when bored, stressed, or during celebrations—even when not hungry.

Processed Foods Make It Worse

• [07:02] The shift since the 1940s and 50s:
  • Increase in “food-like objects”—highly processed foods that are designed for convenience and pleasure.
  • These foods are engineered for maximum addictiveness using "bliss points" (perfect ratios of sugar, salt, and fat) and "vanishing caloric density" (e.g., Cheetos disappear in your mouth, tricking the brain).

Is It About Willpower?

• [10:34] Dr. Brewer challenges the willpower myth:
  "Willpower is more myth than muscle. If you look at the equations for behavior change, they don’t include a variable for willpower."
  • Overeating patterns are driven by reinforcement learning, not a lack of willpower.
  • People act according to how rewarding the experience was in the past and how accurately they predict the reward of doing it again.

Changing Food Behaviors

• [12:25] Dr. Brewer shares insights from research using the "Eat Right Now" app:
  • Participants imagine eating what they crave before actually eating it. This often reduces the desire.
  • "It only took 10 or 15 times for somebody to change that reward value in their brain below zero... all through just having that reward value change in their brain."

The Pleasure Plateau

• [17:53] Discussion about eating treats (like chocolate peanut butter cups):
  • The first bite brings the most pleasure, then enjoyment plateaus and may fall off ("the cliff of overindulgence").
• Dr. Brewer [18:09]: "Ask yourself with each bite, is this bite better than, the same as, or worse than the last one? And when it gets to the place where it’s just the same... does it feel better to stop than to keep going?"

Need vs. Want

• [20:56] Dr. Brewer advises checking in with your body:
  • "What do I need as compared to what do I want?"
  • Uncover whether you’re eating to meet a physical need or just to scratch an emotional itch (boredom, loneliness, etc.).

Comfort Eating: Real or Excuse?

• [22:23] Dr. Brewer: "It's absolutely a real thing and an excuse to eat more. There’s a fair amount of research showing all the different ways that we associate mood with food."

The Potato Chip Experiment (Memorable Moment)

• [22:47] Dr. Brewer tells a story about a patient who used to eat a whole bag of potato chips nightly. He asked her to pay attention and ask herself, "How many chips is enough?"
  • She stopped at two chips (vs. estimated 25) when eating mindfully.
  • Quote [23:15]: "She just didn’t feel great after eating them because she wasn’t hungry."
  • Key lesson: The body is wise if we listen.

Resources Mentioned

• Eat Right Now app ([24:25]): "It’s actually now a CDC-recognized diabetes prevention program."
• Book: "The Hunger Habit: Why We Eat When We're Not Hungry and How to Stop"

3. The Science of Prediction, Randomness, and Coincidence — with Kit Yates

Perception of Randomness and the Lottery

• [27:12] Kit Yates explains that most people’s intuition about randomness is wrong:
  • "We think of randomness as being well spaced out... but actually, in half of all lottery draws from that UK lottery, you would see two consecutive numbers coming up."
  • Many people pick birthdays (numbers 1-31), leading to shared jackpots even in random games.

Coincidences Are More Likely Than You Think

• [29:01] "Coincidences are actually surprisingly likely."
  • With enough opportunities, unlikely events will occur (law of truly large numbers).

How We Make Predictions: The Linearity Bias

• [30:32] Humans tend to assume things will continue as they have (linearity bias), but not all processes are linear.

  • Example: Estimating vaccine rollouts during the pandemic—linear thinking led to false conclusions.
  • Story about vaccine rollout speed: "That’s an inherent assumption... and of course, actually what happened is that we ramped up... and actually the whole of the US adult population was vaccinated within six months."

• [32:21] Classic test:

  • If Laura runs 100m in 13 seconds, will she run 1000m in 130 seconds? No—linearity fails in real-life situations.
  • AI (like ChatGPT) also defaults to linear thinking, showing how ingrained this bias is.

Feedback Loops: Self-Fulfilling & Self-Defeating Prophecies

• [34:14] Placebo effect as self-fulfilling prophecy: belief in treatment makes people feel better even if chemically inert.
• Pandemic modeling as self-defeating prophecy: Predictions prompt action, preventing the scenario from unfolding.

Pattern Recognition—And Misrecognition

• [36:38] Example: People believed iPod shuffle wasn't random because it played two songs from the same artist back to back.

  • "[Steve Jobs] said, 'We're making it less random to make it feel more random.'"

• We find patterns in clouds or see causes in random clustering of events (e.g., linking power lines to cancer cases), even when there’s no real connection.

The Power and Pitfall of Coincidences (Memorable Segment)

• [41:27] Kit tells a personal story about a train ticket and book with matching initials discovering the "coincidence":
  • "The fact that we spot these coincidences, that for me is the real magic... We shouldn't jump to conclusions just when we see an unusual event occurring."
• [44:08] Even everyday events—like thinking of someone and then getting a call from them—are likely and not necessarily "psychic."

Luck, Coincidence, and Human Nature

• People romanticize coincidences, but they’re natural occurrences in large, random systems.

4. Language Note: Most Despised Words & Phrases

• [46:52] Mike shares a 2008 Oxford study of disliked English phrases.
  • Examples: "At the end of the day," "absolutely," "with all due respect," etc.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote / Moment | |---------------|-------------|----------------------| | 04:50 | Dr. Jud Brewer | “It's kind of a misappropriation of a very helpful survival mechanism... our brains start learning, ‘oh, I can use the same negative reinforcement process when I’m bored.’” | | 10:34 | Dr. Jud Brewer | “Willpower is more myth than muscle...neuroscientists don’t even talk about willpower because that’s not what drives behavior change.” | | 18:09 | Dr. Jud Brewer | “Ask yourself with each bite, is this bite better than, the same as, or worse than the last one?” | | 23:15 | Dr. Jud Brewer | “She found that two...she hit her...her salt...she could enjoy the two potato chips, but beyond that, that itch had been scratched.” | | 24:25 | Dr. Jud Brewer | “We created an app called Eat Right Now...based on helping people bring awareness to their eating habits.” | | 27:12 | Kit Yates | “We think of randomness as being well spaced out... but actually, in half of all lottery draws from that UK lottery, you would see two consecutive numbers coming up.” | | 32:21 | Kit Yates | “This is the essence of linearity bias. We’re sort of taking these problems we’ve been drilled with at school and applying them to the real world where it might not be appropriate.” | | 36:38 | Kit Yates | “[Steve Jobs] said, ‘We’re making it less random to make it feel more random.’” | | 41:27 | Kit Yates | “The fact that we spot these coincidences, that for me is the real magic... We shouldn’t jump to conclusions just when we see an unusual event occurring.” | | 44:08 | Kit Yates | “...thinking of someone and then they call you? ...That’s because you’ve got, you know, psychic abilities... But of course, that happens to everyone...” |

Timestamps for Important Segments

• 02:10 – Body Language tip: The belly button rule
• 04:50–25:10 – Main interview: Dr. Jud Brewer on why we eat when not hungry, willpower myths, habits, and solutions
• 17:53 – The pleasure plateau and mindful eating experiment
• 22:47 – The potato chip anecdote
• 24:25 – Introduction of "Eat Right Now" app
• 26:44–46:46 – Main interview: Kit Yates on randomness, prediction biases, and coincidence
• 27:12 – The science behind picking lottery numbers
• 32:21 – Linearity bias, AI, and real-world mistakes
• 36:38 – iPod shuffle and randomness
• 41:27 – Spotting and understanding coincidences
• 46:52 – Most despised phrases in English

Conclusion

This episode blends actionable health psychology with mathematically grounded insights into human behavior. Listeners learn not only how to better understand and control their own eating habits (by listening to their bodies rather than relying on willpower or empty rules), but also why our brains are often fooled by randomness, prediction errors, and coincidence.

Whether you're looking to break free of unhelpful eating patterns or just want to understand why life feels more random (and interconnected) than it really is, the episode delivers “something you should know”—in insightful, practical, and often surprising ways.