self-discovery, thanks to CBC

It's been a while since I posted. I've been in total denial mode - the "oh, I'll get back on that exercise thing on Monday" kind of denial. But I wanted to post about a recent self-realization in hopes that it really starts to permeate my being (at the risk of sounding a bit hippy-dippy).

So I was listening to Quirks & Quarks this week, and they had on a psychologist who researches brain differences between overweight and normal weight people. She was looking at the pleasure-centre activation using food as a stimulus (chocolate milkshakes to be precise) and expecting to see that in overweight people there would be more activation in the pleasure area (cause if you like something, you do it more, right?) As it turns out, there was LESS activation. Overweight people, apparently, get LESS enjoyment out of food. Interestingly, addictions researchers see a similar effect with people whose addictions are progressing - the measurable pleasure of whatever it is they're imbibing in actually decreases over time, prompting the addict to need more.

This totally made sense to me. For me - I would hesitate to say that ALL overweight people have this problem. I can eat a meal and stop, but if I start snacking, ESPECIALLY when I don't really need to, I can't stop eating. I'll have a piece of toast or whatever and think "I don't need any more" and then go back and make another one. And then have some cookies. And then an apple, because I need to eat something healthy. And then another cookie. And then it's dinner time.

So I thought "huh. I think I'm a food addict." I've always tried to ignore that possibility, preferring instead to believe that there was nothing wrong with me that a little willpower wouldn't fix, knowing that I'd been able to lose weight in the past, conveniently ignoring the part where it all came back on the minute any extra stress entered my life. But I think I have to face the fact that there IS something wrong with my brain - leaving aside, for now, the question of from whence this defect came - and I CAN do something about it in the same way that alcoholics and drug addicts can.

Of course, I can't stop eating. But I can stop eating the foods that trigger out-of-control eating, which is anything starchy or sweet. A bit of internet research quickly showed that almost all the people who've beaten an eating addiction have done so by cutting out starchy-sweet things. I've known for a long time that these foods are not doing me any favours but now I have to realize that my brain is expecting a big bang-for-buck in terms of pleasure from these things and it's not getting it, so it wants me to eat more. Well, from now on, the old brain is going to have to make do with pleasures from cheese and veggies. Deal, brain. (I think the problem IS actually specific to starchy-sweet stuff, because we are evolutionarily built to load up on that sort of stuff whenever it's around - and the best way to make someone do something is to make it fun. Hence the link between starchy-sweet and pleasure. I think the researchers would have had entirely different results had they used cheese as the the stimulus.)

For the last 2 days I've eaten no starch or sugar. And I'm not missing it, surprisingly. The real test will be the Hallowe'en parties this weekend - if I can make it through those, I can make it through Christmas. The problem in the past has been that I always thought I could get back on the wagon easily enough. Now I know that's not true. If I eat one jellybean, I will eat more.

Also, I got orthotics and I've been jogging a couple times a week. It's not fun, but I'm doing it.

And in the interests of full disclosure, my current weight is 164 lbs.