"It was a compulsion. I couldn’t help being drawn to look at all of the things that I shouldn’t be eating. Why?"
The typical weight loss route looks something like this: eat less and exercise more. There is no doubt that many folks are following this plan at this very moment. Playing the odds, I can bet that a good percentage of us have actually been down this road before as well.
I can remember days of starving for a competition, trying not to drool over the dessert cookbooks in the grocery checkout aisle. Darn, they looked good. In fact, they looked so good that I would buy them by the handfuls and read them like novels, dreaming about what I would eat when the competition was over.
It was a compulsion. I couldn’t help being drawn to look at all of the things that I shouldn’t be eating. Why?
Researchers investigating this phenomenon noticed that people restricting calories, or those that go for long periods of time with out eating are driven to seek reward from food more than those who eat on a regular basis.
In fact, brain-imaging in people undergoing self-imposed caloric restriction show increased activity in regions of the brain responsible for attention, reward valuation, memory, and homeostatic feeding. These responses were significantly greater when viewing images of palatable food vs non-food images. These responses were also heightened when in a restricted versus non-restricted condition.
This suggests the increased reward value of high-fat, high-calorie foods during or after caloric restriction. No wonder I couldn’t get enough of the dessert cookbooks!
Longer durations of food restriction resulted in greater brain response to images of palatable foods as well as the anticipation of receiving a yummy treat (chocolate milkshake). It also increases the likelihood of actually indulging in high-fat, high-calorie foods.
What is the take home message here?
Cutting calories and skipping meals is a sure way to increase cravings for high-fat, high-calorie foods. This generally results in failure to achieve weight, health, and fitness related goals and solidifies a relapse pattern.
I have heard it time and again from my MP trainers and their clients: “It is so strange, I don’t crave foods anymore”, or “I don’t know why but now I can be around food that I normally couldn’t resist. I don’t even want it anymore.”
It is a great feeling to feel freed from the magnetic pull of food. Anyone can do it, you just have to eat…more.
I am eating the same types of foods I was eating back in my craving days, but I am eating more of them! Getting out of a large caloric deficit is key.
Matching your exercise to your nutrition is paramount to ensuring that you’re not in a large negative energy balance.
Reference: Stice E. Caloric deprivation increases responsivity of attention and reward brain regions to intake, anticipated intake, and images of palatable foods. NeuroImage 67 (2013) 322–330
Dr Paul Cribb is an award-winning scientist, author, and the creator of mp-body.com – the first ever science-based, research-proven, nationally accredited body transformation program. Learn more here