How our brains make us overeat and gain weight
You probably know that if you eat more calories than you burn off, you're going to gain weight. It's simple math. But if you keep eating your favourite foods long after you're full, sometimes long after you feel sick from the overeating, your brain may be hindering your weight loss plans.
That drive to overeat -- his own drive to overeat -- is what led Dr. David Kessler to write the book The End of Overeating, (McLelland & Stewart, 2009). "I wanted to understand why that chocolate chip cookie had such power over me," he explains in an e-mail interview. "My own overeating wasn't limited to chocolate chip cookies... cakes, fries, you name it!"
Conditioned hypereating, as he calls it, is identified by three characteristics:
-losing control and being unable to resist eating appetizing foods;
-the inability to feel full and;
-a preoccupation with foods in between meals; or, while eating, thinking about what you'll eat next.
Fat, sugar and salt drives you to overeat
"About 50 per cent of obese people, 30 per cent of overweight people and 20 per cent of healthy weight people score very high on scales of the characteristics of conditioned overeating," explains the former commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. "All told, that probably means millions of Canadians struggle with overeating."
Although it's unclear why some people overeat and other don't, what is certain is that the combination of fat, sugar and salt stimulates food intake and drives you to overeat. "Certainly in the States, the business plans of the modern American food companies to put fat, sugar and salt on every corner, make it accessible throughout the day, and make it socially acceptable to eat anytime and anywhere have triggered an increase in overeating," he explains.
How food can hijack your brain
In fact, these foods are hijacking your brain's reward circuitry, which involves learning, motivation, habit and memory. When you eat a highly appetizing food, it stimulates your brain and gives you momentary pleasure. You'll seek out the same food again -- follow its cues, such as sight, smell, location or even the mere thought of it -- for a repeat of that pleasure and eventually the cycle becomes imprinted on your brain. The memory of the rewarding feeling is no longer necessary to eat that food, it becomes "I'm in this situation, I'm going to eat this."
This conditioning, this learned behaviour, is exactly why diets don't work, explains Kessler. "Once the old neural circuitry is laid down and the old learning is established, sure you can deprive yourself of food for 30, 60, 90 days and lose weight, but after that -- if you go back to the same environment and have not laid down new learning, new neural circuitry -- of course you're going to gain the weight back."
Click to continue to learn how to stop overeating...
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