“I FEEL MY FOOD IS TOO RESTRICTIVE” – Part I

 “I Feel My Food is Too Restrictive” can be the foundation of faulty thinking that believes once we go on a “diet” and lose our weight or reach our goal, we can then be done and go back to our old foods again. This is a common thought when people are close to maintenance. It’s almost like a magic line people feel they cross and can now eat all kinds of foods. This thinking, however, tells us that internally we are still fighting with the truth of what many of those foods have done to create weight gain in the first place, but also how they have affected our body’s biochemistry and fostered inflammation and disease states within us.

It’s a very, very slippery slope, as well. Because while many of us are doing fine when totally avoiding a particular food, once we indulge, we get the wheels turning again and have a hard time staying away from it the next time, and the next time. We can even wake up and encourage our old cravings again, when we had gotten rid of them by getting our blood sugar and insulin spikes under control – diabetic or not.

There definitely is an addictive quality to many chips and other foods, especially processed ones, because of the processed ingredients and the effect they have on our blood sugar. Certain foods drive up blood sugar quickly, which creates higher spikes of insulin in order to help lower it. Then blood sugar drops down, creating that drive for more food to bring it back up – hence, cravings.

This is how cravings begin again, and it can be a tough cycle to break. That rise in insulin also affects other hormones, as well, creating more hormone imbalance and driving inflammation. It affects hormones like leptin (our fat burning and hunger hormone), thyroid (which helps with metabolism), and serotonin (mostly found in the GI tract where it regulates bowel function and reduces our appetite while eating).

All these hormones can incite food cravings, which can also be driven by certain areas in the brain that are responsible for memory, pleasure and reward. It can be complicated. In addition, you can have endorphin hormones released into the body after you have eaten. They are not only designed to relieve stress and pain, but to boost pleasure (similar to opioids), as well. This is the power of anything addictive. Once again, everything comes back to body chemistry – not calories.

The key to achieving and maintaining a healthy weight is about a lifestyle that includes eating real, healthy whole foods in order to give your body the proper nutrients it needs, by consuming food that your body requires for proper function, decreasing inflammation, balancing out your blood sugar level and regulating your insulin response.

Our goal has always been to provide you with a basic structure and strategy in the short-term, and in the long- term provide you with an education about your food and its effects in order to keep you moving consistently towards better health. That way you can make peace with a “lifestyle” of healthy eating that is sustainable for you.

Next week we will see that though the road is not always easy, there are some things we can do to help us break old patterns that are destroying us.