Your brain on sugar!
- Jan 3, 2016
- 3 min read
Hello all,
Welcome to my first blog and a Happy New Year to you!
I'm going to kickstart this blog with a discussion on sugar, how it affects the brain and in turn causes weight gain.
Back in January 2014 I read an article that startled me and I want to share the content of it with you now. The author was a recovering drug addict and related an 'a-ha' moment he had one day regarding food. He said that his cravings for food reminded him of his cravings for drugs. "Yeah yeah, I've heard this before" I thought. Then, when the author asked others in his NA (Narcotics Anonymous) group about food cravings, a lot of them said the same thing...they all had food cravings and they all felt like drug cravings! I'll give you a moment while you pick yourself up off the floor.
Maybe this bit of information doesn't shock you. Perhaps it's old news for you. But it shocked me, even though I've read countless times that food addictions are real. Perhaps what shocked me was the mental image I suddenly had of a severely downtrodden drug addict that I then applied to myself when I was craving food. My head was suddenly filled with images of food addicts everywhere hiding food under the kitchen sink behind the bleach, eating in secret, brushing their teeth to hide the evidence etc.
I tried to find that article again so I could share with you, but unfortunately I lost it in cyber space. What made me think of it again this morning was a great video released by TED-ed. The video shows how sugar effects the brain similarly to drugs and alcohol.
Considering that sugar is in just about every processed food (how do you think they make low-fat taste so good?), it's easy to see how food addiction can go unrealized in a large segment of the population. Think you're craving a healthy low-fat yoghurt?...Think again. You're actually craving the sugar in that processed yoghurt. See how food addiction can be hiding in plain sight?
People often attempt to detox from alcohol, grains and sugar. Interestingly enough they often find that alcohol and grains are the easiest ones. But they realize that they need to be firm with their 'no-thank-yous' for sugar otherwise it leads them down an incredibly slippery slope from which it's hard to recover.
They need to start treating themselves like an addict, and ask that others do the same...'please no one bring sweets to my house!'. But, what else besides admitting their problem can they do? How can they overcome their sugar addiction?
I was reading an article about how recovering addicts find a healthy habit to replace their former addiction. Like exercise. Exercise releases dopamine just like drugs, sugar, and alcohol, so it's a good replacement activity.
What else can we do to replace all that feel good dopamine in addition to exercise? Vitamin C and E are helpful in raising dopamine levels so foods that contain these are helpful as are bananas, avocado and almonds.
The only trick now is training your body to want exercise and healthy foods more than sugar. Practice makes perfect, so keep trying and be firm with your 'no-thank-yous'.
A good idea is to attempt a 30-day streak without sugar. For help on this, I offer a range of services including:
- A full 30 day sugar-free nutritional plan with online tracking,
- Remote training exercise plans with a FREE skype consultation to kickstart your fitness journey.
- One-to-one personal training sessions to replicate the dopamine production of sugar.
In the meantime, please check out the link below for the TED-ed video I mentioned on sugar addiction: https://youtu.be/lEXBxijQREo
My next blog will look at different types of sugar.
For now, stay creative everyone! :)
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