WHY DO WE OVEREAT?

 This is psychology and science by me so it may not be perfect—but the message is good!

1. Stress Eating:  If we are stressed our body releases cortisol.  Cortisol then floods the body with glucose which is the body’s blood sugar that supplies immediate energy.  Unfortunately, the elevated cortisol level also increases your appetite for sugary, carbohydrate laden or fatty foods because the signal is going out that you are using the energy that is quickly available.  It is a true scientific craving that is hard to fight.
2. Dieting: When we restrict our food intake, we are again contributing to food cravings.
3. Vitamin Deficiencies: If we crave chocolate, we might be low in magnesium.  You can substitute green leafy vegetables, avocados, almonds, bananas, beans or brown rice.  B Vitamin deficiencies can cause you to be anemic and have low energy.  A B-12 deficiency will cause you to crave meat and B-9 deficiency will cause you to crave bread, rice, crackers and pastries.
4. Hormonal Imbalance: We all know about the cravings correlated with a woman’s menstrual cycle.  Women going through menopause gain 3-30 pounds due to hormone imbalances.
5. The Sleep Gremlin (Ghrelin): Ghrelin is what I call the little gremlin that makes us hungry.  It is our hunger hormone.  If you don’t get enough sleep this little gremlin is wide awake and makes you hungrier.
6. Dopamine: Eating sugar and carbs is a lot like taking heroin and some other drugs.  We literally become addicted to certain foods.  This why we eat when we are stressed or anxious.  Dopamine is our “happy hormone”.  When we eat sugar or carbs our body releases dopamine and we scientifically become happier (until our sugar levels crash).
7. *Insulin Spikes: Refined/processed carbohydrates cause the insulin to spike.  We get a quick burst of energy but we do not get full because our body burns off the quick energy and then looks for more quick energy which causes us to crave more of these foods.  Meanwhile, all these empty calories that have no nutritional value are sitting there adding to our weight gain.  The extra production of insulin causes our body to shut down the food processing mechanism.
8. Leptin: We love leptin.  This is the leprechaun that tells us we are full.  Learning about leptin changed my life.  It is the hormone that is produced by our fat cells and sent to the brain (the hypothalamus).  It tells our brain that we have enough fat stored, and therefore we are not hungry.  Carb and sugar intake sends competing signals to the hypothalamus that causes the body not to read your leptin signals stating that your body is full.  This is why we can eat until our stomachs are bulging and we are still hungry.  Fat people produce high levels of leptin all the time.  However, over time, we become immune to the signals that the leptin is sending because we overrode the signals so many times in favor of tastes or desires.  Eventually your brain becomes immune to the signals and may even associate the level you are producing as saying you are “starving” because you have continued to eat at that level so many times.  We create a leptin resistance in our bodies.  This creates a very dangerous cycle because if you go on a diet and lose weight, your body begins producing less leptin which again causes your body to scream that it is hungry, even “starving”.  You have tricked your brain into misreading the signals.   Is it any wonder that we can’t diet or lose weight?

Other physiological signals can contribute to leptin resistance:

9. Inflammation: Remember how sugar contributes to inflammation in your joints?  Well now we are just creating a vicious cycle.  You eat sugar and cause inflammation and that creates a resistance to leptin which tells us we are full.
10. Lack of exercise
11. High carb intake: High triglycerides caused by high carbs can inhibit the bloods ability to transport leptin to the brain.  So basically we have this little train of blood that the leptin can’t hop on because the triglycerides are serving as bouncers that hold it back.  And you started this entire cycle by eating too many carbs.  Is it any wonder that we can’t eat healthy or lose weight?

Solutions:

1. Increase protein– This curbs your sugar cravings. Protein increases the dopamine in your body, the brain’s happiness hormone.  You should no longer feel guilty about wanting that steak.  Grill it, eat it, enjoy it.  I found myself eating a lot of red meat and nuts during my first few weeks of changing to God foods.
2. Lower carb and sugar intake–

3. Exercise—I am not the person to talk about getting off your booty and exercise so this book will not talk a lot about it. I do not understand people who do not want to go for a walk.  God has made his world so beautiful… go see it every day.  Get a puppy, they will make you take a walk.  The walk and the puppy  will make you happier.  Find anything you enjoy doing.  Ride a bike, swim, walk, ride bikes, lift weights.  Turn off the television for just 30 minutes, or do exercises during the commercials.

 

WHY DO WE OVEREAT? 

This is psychology by me, so it may not be perfect but… again, the messages can be revealing.

Psychological Revelations

1. Emotional pain: Creating confusion and a physical pain that I control to take the attention off the other pain I cannot control:

I get caught up in the craziness of life and it is almost like the spinning becomes a vortex that sucks me into the center of the spin.  Food becomes part of the craziness. I throw it up into the whirlwind so that it bumps and knocks against the whirling things that are caught up into the madness.  I actually feel comforted by creating the confusion, by choosing the huge amounts of food that I throw up in the air, catch in my mouth, slowly chew and savor and then punish myself with the overly full pain that adds to the chaos.  But it is chaos that I control, chaos that I create.  Why does that comfort?  Why does that relax?  I create the chaos and then there is a calm in the pain created by the result of a beautiful savoring.  I get it now.  I am finding beauty in pain.  I am self-inflicting the pain in a way that only I can control.  Does that give me a feeling that I can control the other pain in my life?

2. Combining pleasure with pain, beauty with ugliness gives me hope:

Does overeating give me a feeling of power taking the positive beauty of food and over-indulging to the ugly point of pain?   I am trying to combine beauty and ugliness, the pleasure of food and the pain of overindulgence, the comfort of eating and the misery of a distended stomach, of even throwing up.  If I can combine the opposite ends of the spectrum then perhaps I can bring the same combination into other parts of my life.  I can bring a peace into my soul in the middle of chaos.  I can find a friend to take my hand in my loneliness.  I can introduce a twinkle of light in the darkness.  I can have hope to bring light to the darkness of despair.

3. I am a food addict—I need a squirt of happy

I have certain “trigger foods” that I crave.  That means my brain, my body compulsively crave these foods like an alcoholic craves alcohol or a cigarette addict craves nicotine.  When I ingest sugar and carbs my brain gets happy.  It literally gets happy because my brain is flooded with dopamine.  Just like any addiction my body craves more and more to get the same high so my eating often increases to the point of pain. This realization was life changing for me.  If this sounds like you read the next section titled “I’m not crazy”.

 

Why do we over eat?  This is processed food science by Linda

I’m not crazy:

 

Food Addictions:  For years I have fought overeating.  I have known at some level that I have a food addiction but honestly it is so subtle that anyone who knows me would laugh at the thought.  Very few of my friends would truly think my eating habits are any different from theirs.  Perhaps I am harder on myself than I should be but I know within my heart that I eat compulsively, which basically means without control.  When I need a “fix” I need a “fix”.  Nothing will stop me from finding the food I want and having it.   So, I have done some research to help you and I figure out this food addiction thing.  Having a background in psychology I have psychoanalyzed myself, searched my childhood, tried to remember feedback from my parents, analyzed feedback from past boyfriends… And while I certainly have baggage in my closet, none of those seem to fully explain what was going on.  So, I finally asked, “Is there a signal in my brain telling me I have to have the food?”.  The answer is yes.  This knowledge was life changing for me.  I hope it can be just as revolutionary for you.

The reality is, I am truly an addict.  I am addicted to foods that artificially stimulate the release of dopamine which is a chemical that sends a signal of pleasure from neuron to neuron in the brain.  This chemical is released in the brain and the neuron collects it and sends this awesome positive feeling through the neurotransmitter to the next neuron which now feels happier and on down the line.  So, it is no surprise that I eat when I feel anxious, depressed or worried.  The amazing thing is I am truly responding to this craving for the temporary happiness that I feel when I eat these foods.  It is my “happy pill”.  It is my cigarette.  It is my glass of wine, my scotch or beer.  It is my drug.  I take pride in being one of the few female friends I know that has not ever taken an anti-anxiety pill but the reality is I am doing the exact same thing.  If I feel lethargic, anxious, sad, worried… I start baking.  I eat something with sugar and butter and flour:  chocolate chip cookies, Mama’s pound cake, French fries, pizza and the list goes on.  Seldom do I crave a steak or grilled chicken when I am frazzled.

Now that we know that we are addicts.  What do we do with that knowledge?

Avoid Processed Foods:

Rewards the brain but not the body:  Why we should avoid processed foods?  God foods have natural nutrients, fiber, water… that give us the fuel we need and allow us to digest the foods easily.  We use what we need and eliminate the wastes.  When foods are processed these elements are often modified to the point of removing nutrients and elements so that they are difficult to digest.  They often have tons of added high fructose corn syrup (liquid processed sugar).  Companies actually engineer the foods to be “rewarding” to the brain which, of course, is like adding nicotine to the cigarettes.  This engineering makes us crave more of the foods.

Preservatives are chemicals that prevent the food from rotting.

Colorants are chemicals that make the foods a pretty color.

Flavor additives are chemicals that give the foods a specific taste.

Texturants are even more chemicals that give the food a texture.

Insulin Spikes:  But for a food addict there is another reason we need to avoid processed foods.  Refined/processed carbohydrates cause the insulin to spike.  And because the foods stimulate too much insulin production our entire system is messed up.  The extra production of insulin causes our body to shut down the food processing mechanism.  It is like having a gas tank you are putting gas in but the gas goes though the tank into an empty tank below.  You are trying to get full but you actually become hungrier and hungrier because all the gas is going in but it is not ever hitting the “full” signal.  The carbohydrates are turned into sugar immediately but there are few nutrients to add to our body’s fuel tank for later use.  Because the sugar spikes up quickly it also crashes shortly after.  You then become lethargic and perhaps even depressed.  The body then begins craving more of the exact same foods so it can get the quick fix of pleasure and energy all over again.  Again, we never feel completely satisfied.

The nutritional value in processed foods is just not the same.  Using the gasoline analogy again it is like putting bad gasoline into our tank.  We have spurts of energy and then we sputter and pause.  Our bodies jerk, push and pull through a crazy mix of energy and crashes.

Carbugers:  A combination of carbohydrates and sugars (yes, I invented this word)

Allergic to carbohydrates & sugar:  Am I?  Probably not scientifically but I have to say when I have carbohydrates or sugar – I call them “Carbugers” I cannot get full.  I can go to an Italian restaurant and have bread and butter, a full pasta meal and desert and I leave there imagining another desert!  Seriously!!  I have often imagined myself like a baby bird with my mouth open eager to receive the next morsel of food even though I just ate.  It seems like I eat and eat but I am still begging for more food.   The beautiful thing about avoiding processed foods is that my body actually becomes full.  Imagine that!!   It helps me to think of myself as being allergic to processed carbohydrates and sugar.  My entire way of eating has changed once I realized it just doesn’t work for me and it never will.  I will always and forever want more and more and more.  However, if I go to that same restaurant and only have bread OR a small serving of pasta OR a desert I can walk out of there satiated.  I just can’t have it all in the same day.

I can’t get full!! For decades I chastised and punished myself for these cycles of cravings, eating, depression, repeat cravings, eating, depression.  As you read in the previous paragraphs, I looked for the psychology reasons behind my inability to “control” my eating.  I felt if I could just figure out “why” I could change the “how” I ate.  NOT TRUE!!  This journey has given me a ray of beautiful, life altering light of knowledge.  When I eat Carbugers I am triggering a massive release of dopamine, the neurotransmitter that makes us happy.  My body is physiologically craving this drug of choice.  It is not a psychological issue.  Combine that happiness with the leptin resistance (the ability to feel full) that I cause by consistently overeating, eating carbs and sugar and I have a horrible vicious cycle.  The good news?  When I quit eating carbugers I quit having the physiological low that caused a lack of energy, even a slight depression that again caused me to crave dopamine.  When I quit eating carbugers I started feeling full.  The results?  I realized I was not crazy.  I realized that I could stop the ferocious hunger. Check that.  I realized that the ferocious hunger stopped on its own. It was a miracle.   I could actually concentrate on eating healthy instead of feeding my cravings and constantly wanting more no matter how much I ate.

Is it easy?  Was that first month easy?  NO!! Was the first year easy?  NO!!  But that is where God’s word gives us the power to take it day by day by day.  We are addicts so it will never be “easy”.  But I can get full now.  I do not have the compulsive cravings that literally made me think I was crazy.  It is so much easier physically to eat right.  Add that change to God’s power and we have a new life.

Why Should we not overeat Carbs and Sugars?

There are three kinds of Carbohydrates:  sugar, starches and fiber.  We often do not think of sugar as a carbohydrate but it is.  So let’s address why we do not want to eat too many “Carburgers”.

Sugar gives us a rush of dopamine, or a rush of pleasure.   It is like a drug.  The problem is that this is very similar to drugs in that our brain has to eventually have more to have the same rush or feeling of happy energy.  Our sugar levels raise but when the levels drop and our cells absorb the sugar we can feel even more anxious.  We can begin to feel a physical depression.  You already know that sugar causes us to gain weight but did you know that sugar itself causes our fat cells to inflame and release chemicals that increase our weight at a higher rate.  Sugar causes inflammation in our joints and raises the chances of developing rheumatoid arthritis.  Sugar attaches to proteins in our bloodstream and actually created “advanced glycation end” products. These molecules damage collagen and elastin in our skin which are protein fibers that keep our skin firm and age our skin at a faster rate.  Sugar/fructose is processed in the liver and when it is broken down in the liver it is turned into fat and can actually damage our liver.  Extra insulin in our bloodstream can cause the walls of our arteries to get inflamed.  Eventually they can grow thicker causing the heart to work harder creating heart issues like heart failure, heart attacks and strokes.  This also creates high blood pressure.    Our pancreas pumps out insulin, but if you over indulge in sugar then eventually your pancreas can stop working because it overworks  itself and your body develops type 2 diabetes.  Although the fructose is processed in your liver your kidneys also filter the blood and if your blood has too much sugar in it the kidneys will release excess sugar in your urine and you can eventually have kidney failure.   (WebMD)