Cravings, Weightloss & Food Addictions
Good morning listeners and welcome to today’s edition on Stress Free living.
As we have been having a taste of warmer weather some of us may be noticing that the clothes that we wore last summer seem a little tighter.Perhaps we have been getting a little heavier as the years roll by, just a little every year, – nothing to worry about – and now we feel heavy and lethargic and perhaps the thought of doing something to shed those extra kilos makes us feel uncomfortable and miserable, which leads us to more comfort food and more kilos.
Or perhaps the excitement of the summer, – warmer days, – holidays, and fun in the sun, perhaps this has inspired us to make some important changes to improve our diet and our health. And perhaps we have stuck to our plan for a week or two and then something derails us and we find ourselves going back to our old habits.What happened? Why is it so hard to stay on track when it comes to making healthy food choices?
The weight loss industry is a multi-million dollar industry and sometimes some of the advertising can lead us to believe that there is a quick fix – a pill or potion that will take the pain out of the process. – Unfortunately it doesn’t work like that. There is an ingredient that we need that cannot be bought in a bottle – I’m talking about willpower.Usually we do have some willpower to start with, but how long does it last? Why can’t we stick to our plan? Why is it soooo hard to lose weight? Why do we struggle with the choice of food that we put in our mouths? We know why people are overweight. We know what we should be doing to lose the excess weight and keep it off, but why is it so hard to do?
Well, scientific research has come up with some of the answers.
There are a lot of reasons why we sabotage our heathy choices, and we really do need to address all of these, but I have found that the best place to start is with our cravings, because cravings are so powerful. A lot of research is being done trying to understand cravings. Scientists have found that the hormone Leptin, tells the brain when we have had enough to eat. When this happens we easily and comfortable say ‘I’ve had enough thank you’. We even feel like being more active after eating. That sounds great! But and this is where the problem lies our modern way of life has led to Leptin resistance. Our brain is not registering the leptin. Why? Because of another hormone – Insulin, – Insulin is blocking Leptin from sending the messages that we have had enough to eat. Studies have been done where mice were fed a diet of highly refined food. Food containing plenty of white flour and white sugar – The mice ate and ate and ate. They just could not get to the point where they were satisfied. They didn’t even run around like mice normally do, they just ate and ate and got fatter and fatter and were not at all interested in anything other than eating. It is not hard to see that these poor mice had become addicted to the food that they were being fed. Just like drug abuse – insulin has an effect on the addictive pathways of the brain. Addictive drugs release a huge dose of Dopamine into the addictive centre of the brain.
The same thing happens when we eat heavily processed foods like sugar and flour. These are the insulin inducing foods. Pasta, pizza, cakes, biscuits, ice-cream, lollies, breads, packaged foods, fast foods, these foods release a massive flood of dopamine into the addictive centre of the brain. This is the beginning of a vicious cycle – the brain knows that we don’t need all that dopamine, so how does it react? It modifies the way dopamine enters the brain cells by decreasing dopamine receptor sites – the result? – we don’t have that ‘feel good’ rush. We now don’t feel pleasure the way we used to, we are not satisfied when our tummies are full, and we don’t feel like doing anything – other than perhaps watching TV we get depressed and lethargic, we don’t have any energy, we don’t feel good, unless we are eating refined food – so now we crave it.
This is where that feeling of ‘I just have to have another cookie’ comes from and so we feed the addiction, and we get fatter and fatter, unhealthier and unhealthier and less active. And down the line we start having health issues, diabetes and a host of other disorders. Highly processed foods – sugar and flour – affect the brain like addictive drugs. Sugar and flour affect the brain like Heroin and cocaine. It is interesting to note that Heroin and cocaine are both highly processed substances, and so is sugar and flour. It’s not all bad news. There is some very encouraging news that also came out of these studies – When you stop flooding the brain with dopamine, (that is when you stop eating processed foods), the receptors grow back and the cravings go away, and you can feel satisfied after eating a healthy meal, and you can feel energised and happy and feel like doing something like going for a walk or going to the gym or even feeling inspired to create beautiful healthy meals or perhaps to even start a veggie garden. This however is easier said than done when we are victims of cravings. Cravings can derail the best of intentions in a split second. Once we have learnt how to conquer our cravings, it is much easier to make healthier food choices.
So today I’m going to walk you through a short process to show you how easily this can be done with the Emotional Freedom Technique, sometimes referred to as Energy psychology, or just tapping.
Now you’ve probably heard the saying that when you fail to plan, you are actually planning to fail, planning is vital. What kind of planning are we talking about?
I am going to walk you through a technique that will significantly reduce your cravings so that you can be calm and peaceful around food that you have become addicted to, but you have to plan to do it. In the beginning do it 3 times a day. It won’t take lone, just do it. Plan to do it after you have brushed your teeth – have a sticky note to remind you. And do it before morning tea, have a plan, it is easy and it doesn’t cost you anything, just a few minutes, but the rewards – well, you will be amazed. Planning good healthy meals well in advance also helps. Make sure that you have all the ingredients that you need every day, so that you don’t have to think about it when you are hungry, because when you are hungry and you haven’t planned your meals, you are more likely to make a bad choice. So planning is vital. What would it take for us to not get to that point where we are addicted to insulin inducing foods in the 1st place? What can we do to make it easier for our families to be healthier and want to be more active?
Well it does start with a willingness, we just have to want to, we just have to decide that we are going to do this. This is the 1st step. There is a huge amount of information out there – information of healthy food choices. I can hear a few sighs and things like ‘but healthy food is so expensive’, ‘My family don’t like healthy food.’,‘It’s just too hard.’,‘Healthy food is difficult to prepare’. Well, as you may have already guessed, I’m going to show you just how easily you can change your mind about healthy living and how easily you can get on the path to a healthy weight and lifestyle. We will take a short break now and after the break we’ll do the exercise
As with everything in life, you are required to take full responsibility for your own wellbeing. The same goes for the process that I will be walking you through, so if you have experienced a trauma in your life that is keeping you from losing weight, …… if you have been a victim of sexual abuse, losing weight could mean being unsafe. This process is very safe, but if you have experienced sexual abuse trauma you might prefer to work with a qualified practitioner to help clear the trauma first. So that is why I always ask you to take responsibility for your own wellbeing, and if you would like some one-on-one work, give me a call to arrange that. I like to start with cravings, because cravings can derail the best intentions in a moment. So think of a food that you can’t say no to. For most people it is potato chips or chocolate perhaps pies or sausages – just think of something that you know is not healthy but you can’t so ‘no’ to. If you have some of this food close at hand, even better get, take it out and look at it while I walk you through the Emotional Freedom Technique, otherwise thinking about it is also okay. Find a comfortable place to sit and look at the food, or just think about it……
For the full Tapping technique please listen to the above podcast