Are we food addicted?
Despite years or even decades of dieting and exercise, we succumb to cravings and often binge out of control. Is it possible that some of us are addicted to food and there is nothing we can do about it? In this video I will show you how we get addicted to food. Also, I’ll show you how to finally bring that addiction under control. Spoiler alert, it has nothing to do with counting calories.
Every day we make an effort to restrict our calories, and we exercise for an hour or more. Soon enough we quit our diets and binge and feel just terrible as a result. Doctors tell us to diet and exercise to avoid or revert obesity and diabetes. But, if you have suffered from either of these, you know that diet and exercise are easier said than done. Very often, Calorie counting keeps us in a bad mood. And dieting keeps us too weak to workout for long enough to lose weight. Scientifically speaking, why is that? Why we have so much trouble staying away from certain foods? Let’s talk about food addiction and how to stop it.
High Glycemic Index
Certain carbohydrates are known to elicit a rapid increase in blood glucose and insulin levels. These carbohydrates are said to have a high glycemic index (HGI). Just like some abuse drugs do, glucose and insulin signal the reward system in our brains and modify dopamine concentration. Intuitively, you know that this is true. You have no trouble finding room in your stomach to eat dessert, for example. We avidly eat dessert, even after a large meal. How many french fries or tortilla chips can you eat when you are on a binge? How many slices of pizza can you eat in one sitting? Have you ever eaten half the chocolates in a box before realizing what you just did? How about doughnuts? Carbs with high glycemic index are not only addictive, but they hardly ever take us to satiety.
Signs of Food Addiction
Let’s define food addiction. Chances are that you, too, have experienced one of the following: 1. Cravings for the so-called “confort foods.” 2. Tolerance, which is an increasingly higher bar to reach satiety for your cravings. 3. Lack of control over your food intake. In other words, even knowing the negative effects on your health and appearance, you continue to repeat the binging behavior. These are signs of addiction, as our mesolimbic reward system plays a pivotal role in food intake.
Essential for Survival
As humans evolved from hunter-gatherers, craving foods with HGI and insulin must have played a critical role in survival. The lack of the dopamine signaling may result in a complete loss of food-seeking behavior. Without it, we simply would die of starvation. On the other hand, bingeing produces a repeated increase of dopamine, akin to drugs of abuse. Insulin, the energy-storing hormone, triggers the reward system and favors energy storage as body fat.
Permanent Weight Loss, Naturally
Only 5% of people with obesity are able to permanently reduce their excess body weight. Treatment success for obesity remains low. Individuals with obesity have higher rates of food addiction when compared to non-obese control populations. The prevalence of food addiction increases with BMI. Addiction occurs in 10% of individuals with normal-weight to about 25% in people with obesity.
Why not treat food addiction instead? This is why research is focused on the understanding of food addiction, in search of new treatment avenues. I would be concern about possible side-effects from the use of drugs to treat food addiction. But how could we lose weight naturally if we are addicted to food? I count myself among the 5% that have reversed obesity permanently. I have experienced that food addiction can be brought under control permanently, by increasing the time between meals. Let me explain:
Dealing with addiction, Naturally
Long ago I was addicted to cigarette smoking. At my pick I would smoke a pack of 20 cigarettes a day. Since my waking hours where surely less than 20 hours, I decided to reduce my smoking. How? by increasing the time between cigarettes. At first, I decided to smoke only at the top of the hour. To my surprise, I cut my smoking in half, to only 10 cigarettes a day. My craving still showed up 30 to 45 min after a cigarette. But I would make a conscious effort to wait a few more minutes until the hour was complete. Amazingly, when the hour was complete, my craving to smoke another cigarette, was drastically reduced. My time between smokes grew longer and longer. Slowly, over months and years, I reduced the number of cigarettes a day. Eventually I quit altogether, as my daughter was soon to be born.
Anyone may reduce their addiction to carbs with HGI, not by avoiding them, but by increasing the time between meals. I started my One-Meal-A-Day regimen back in Nov. 2009, without an adaptation period. Back then, my diet was rich in carbohydrates of a HGI like bread, potatoes, rice and pasta. My time between meals was 23 hours, but you may progressively increase the time between meals. First, by delaying your breakfast and taking your dinner earlier. Eventually doing the 18:6 intermittent fasting. After that it should be easy to reach the OMAD regimen.
Insulin and Ghrelin
With OMAD, we adjust the basal insulin levels and bring the Ghrelin effect under control. Watch my video about hunger control through Ghrelin and Insulin control linked on the top right corner of your screen. Recently, I’ve learned about the advantages of a low carb diet. Nevertheless, with OMAD my cravings have long been gone and I see food only as fuel. I hardly ever feel hungry, except close to 11am, when I have my OMAD.
Emotional eating
If you are one of those “emotional eaters” that gets cravings when depressed, you are not alone. All you are doing is trying to reach your own reward system to help you cope. You’ll find that with tolerance, you will need more and more carbohydrate intake to reach that reward level. Understanding the problem is half way to the solution.
OMAD to fight addiction
To lower your carbohydrate cravings, there is OMAD. If you think that you could never make OMAD part of your lifestyle, you are not alone either. Give it a try! If you are able to complete 21 days of OMAD you will change your life. I believe anyone at any age can complete this OMAD goal. You will bring your addiction, cravings and food binging under control naturally. You will find that it is a lot easier than you think now. So give it a try.
With OMAD you will bring your basal insulin level down. The first few days will be hard, but they will become easier and easier. Stay with the carbohydrate diet at first, if you must. Eventually, You will feel hungry only once a day, and you will have no craving for any particular food. Best of all, the sky will clear and your life will change in ways you never thought possible. I will then personally congratulate you for changing your life. Then, as now, I will remind you that “life is looking up”!.
