With Thanksgiving on the way, many Americans are wondering how they will pass up one of the greatest feasts of the year without caving in on their diet plans. According to a report from Live Science, a new study suggests that the bacteria in the gut may influence when we feel we’ve had enough to eat.

The study, published in the journal Cell Press, found that E.Coli bacteria get to work soon after food reaches the stomach. Scientists discovered chemical makers that showed certain strains of bacteria were capable of sending a signal to the brain letting it know when the stomach was full.

Roughly 20 minutes after someone eats, bacteria begin to create proteins that trigger a hormone that lets the brain know it’s time to stop eating. There are roughly 100 trillion bacteria in the body at any given time, and about 70 percent of them live in the digestive tract.

E.Coli, despite its connotations with disease, is found in most healthy people’s intestines in the form of a benign strain. The new study suggests that the bacteria may even be responsible for regulating the amount of nutrients a person consumes in a sitting.

According to Sergueï O. Fetissov, a professor from Rouen University in France, the E.Coli bacteria in the gut begin producing a protein called ClpB. His research team measured the protein and compared its levels to pre-and-post eating sessions.

The study found that about 20 minutes following the consumption of food, E.Coli bacteria began producing more than twice the amount of the ClpB protein as they did before the stomach was full. This was around the same time most people began to feel as though they had eaten enough food.

A press release from Cell Press outlining the details of the study can be found here.