I've now been eating healthy for 12 weeks and my carb cravings have gone. I wondered if that might be at the heart of the issue. If found that researchers at Harvard Medical School have reported that the effects of the sharp rise in blood sugar and the subsequent fall activates the same part of the brain as emotion and addiction.
It appears like our brains have evolved to reward us when we eat high calorie foods. This is great for a primitive ancestors, for whom food was difficult to come by. Where a rare honeycomb would be an energy dense treat, but we can get sugar filled sweets every day. Our brains seem to override our common sense and we keep eating.
When given the choice between a salad and a bar of chocolate, most people with weight issues would pick the chocolate. Whilst the salad tastes good, our brain sees the calorie rich sweets and starts to release the reward chemicals, giving us little choice in the matter. Combine this chemical assault with emotional issues that can be subdued with food and we have a recipe for disaster.
I know I have certain foods that I couldn't just eat a single portion. Biscuits being the number one culprit. So when I embarked on the Slimming World plan, I went 'cold turkey'. I know that on the plan you are allowed a little of what you like as syns, so you don't feel deprived. But eating two chocolate digestives, leaving their remaining 25 friends in the packet would have been too difficult. Bread, pizza, sweets and chocolate all went the same way, out of the house. I have to admit the cravings for these foods was difficult for the first couple of weeks. Sugary stuff was the first thing I realised I wasn't craving around week three. Bread took a little longer, but now I no longer feel I NEED to eat any of it. I still enjoy the taste of bread, but am happy with a single portion as part of a meal.
The problem with a food addiction is that you can't easily go tee total in the same way someone with a problem with alcohol or drugs. You need food to survive and it is woven into the fabric of our society. Eating with family, celebrating with food and socialising with friends. It is hard to escape. Fasting is a very severe step for most people and therefore not an option. Enter the weight loss pills and supplements. If you could pop a single pill every day and still indulge your brain's constant need for calories whilst remaining at a healthy weight, lots of people would sign up.
I would like to see a study where subjects were deprived of refined carbohydrates for a period of time, in a rehab type environment to confirm my suspicions that the carb craving can be broken, like an addiction. I think that whilst it is possible to do at home, the distractions of family, friends and the environment would make the task too difficult for most people. Once the research was complete and people knew for certain that, for example, six weeks of a diet free from over processed or refined carbohydrates would make it easier to eat a healthy diet for the rest of their lives, they would be more determined to see it though.
After losing eighty one pounds so far and feeling comfortable with the food I'm eating, I wanted to see what effect eating chocolate would have on me. I bought one of my favorite bars (Boost 12.5 syns) and tried it on Wednesday. Apart from thinking it was a waste of my syn allowance, I found that it was not as nice as I remembered. In the past I could quite happily have munched through a four pack. One was more than enough. Part of me wanted it to taste nasty. In reality it just tasted like a lump of sugary chocolate, not unpleasant, but not something that I'll be rushing out to try again. Could it be that I have broken the addiction? Now to sort out my emotional relationship with food.
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