Food Addiction Coaching: They call it “food rehab”, is it the new trend in treatment? We offer food rehab @ www.theaddictionscoach.com 1.800.706.0318
How Big Business Makes Food As Addictive as Cocaine: The Secret Science Behind Food Addiction And How to Beat It
“I eat all the time,” Sarah said with a nervous giggle. “I eat when I’m hungry, I eat when I’m not hungry. I eat to celebrate, I eat when I’m sad. I eat at night. I eat when my husband comes home.”
Being overweight may not entirely be your fault – as it turns out, certain combinations of food are more addictive than others. Interestingly (and unsurprisingly) enough, the food industry has learned to exploit these things.
Just how addictive are these foods though?
In studies done on mice, to find out how hard they are willing to work for certain foods (and thus measure their desire for it), the breaking point for foods high in sugar and fat were a step below cocaine. Animals are literally willing to work almost as hard to get either one.
Overeating is Not Your Fault: How the Food Industry Makes You Eat More Than You Think.
Ordinarily, after we eat the same food over and over, habituation sets in, dopamine levels decline, and the food loses some of its capacity to get us “high” again. But, interestingly enough, cocaine [ and the foods we’re talking about ] don’t cause the brain to curb its dopamine response at all.
Cocaine will not result in habituation – so a person who uses it will continue to release dopamine, almost at the same amount as the initial level.
Interestingly, after feeding rats a high-sugar, high-fat chocolate drink for a period of time, the dopamine response did not diminish. There was no habituation.
There are a few main ways that smart food marketers are having you eat a lot more than you think:
- Processing
- Hidden Sugar, Fat & Salt
- Added Chemicals and Flavors
Hot chocolate, for example, has almost no chocolate in it. It’s a high school science experiment. If that terrifies you, it should. It’s basically made up of some dairy replacements (for that creamy quality) and then has added sugar and artificial flavors.
There are billion dollar businesses designed to make food taste like something that it’s not.
Everyday you are fighting a carefully orchestrated system that has the explicit goal of having you eat more food.
There are billions of dollars of money and research that go into getting you to eat more of a company’s product. End of story.
How to Break the Cycle: It’s Not About Willpower – It’s About Biology
I want you to repeat this sentence over and over: It’s not about willpower, it’s about biology.
Ultimately, breaking free from the addiction to sugar, fat [ the bad kind, not the good kind ] and salt lies in one thing: not eating them. But how?
When we sit around triggers or cues – we begin to crave these foods, the craving releases dopamine, which then gets us to eat the food, which releases more dopamine.
Willpower is useless here – it would be like telling a drug addict to just “fight” the heroin craving. Instead, start thinking about how you can set up systems that prevent you from failing.
The vast majority of people passing on this stupid “willpower” advice are people who have no direct experience dealing with anything remotely related to what you are dealing with. It’s just a stupid piece of blanket advice that hasn’t been street-tested.
Here are 3 systems that will help you kick the addiction for good. Remember, I’m not going to give you some “willpower” BS or “just do it” crap advice.
The 3 Systems:
- Awareness
- Habit Re-Training
- Food Rehab
Click on link below to read entire article, including the details on the 3 systems listed above: