Carbohydrate Addiction is Epidemic........Part 1

Carbohydrate Addiction is Epidemic........Part 1

And the Food Industry Promotes it right along with the FDA & the AMA!

A staggering two-thirds of Americans are now overweight, and one in four are either diabetic or pre-diabetic.

Obesity rates in children in several states are now above 30%!!!!!!

Carb-rich processed foods are a primary driver of these statistics, and while many blame Americans’ overindulgence of processed junk foods on lack of self-control, scientists are now starting to reveal the truly addictive nature of such foods.

Most recently, researchers at the Boston Children's Hospital concluded that highly processed carbohydrates stimulate brain regions involved in reward and cravings, promoting excess hunger.

As reported by Science Daily:

“These findings suggest that limiting these 'high-glycemic index' foods could help obese individuals avoid overeating.”

While I don’t agree with the concept of high glycemic foods, it is important that they are at least thinking in the right direction. Also, the timing is ironic, considering the fact that the American Medical Association (AMA) recently declared obesity a disease, treatable with a variety of conventional methods, from drugs to novel anti-obesity vaccines...

The featured research is on the mark, and shows just how foolhardy the AMA’s financially-driven decision really is. Drugs and vaccines are clearly not going to do anything to address the underlying problem of addictive junk food.


Brain Imaging Shows Food Addiction Is Real

 

The study, published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition examined the effects of high-glycemic foods on brain activity, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). One dozen overweight or obese men between the ages of 18 and 35 each consumed one high-glycemic and one low-glycemic meal. The MRI was done four hours after each test meal. According to the researchers:

“Compared with an isocaloric low-GI meal, a high-glycemic index meal decreased plasma glucose, increased hunger, and selectively stimulated brain regions associated with reward and craving in the late postprandial period, which is a time with special significance to eating behavior at the next meal.”

The study demonstrates what many people experience: After eating a high-glycemic meal, i.e. rapidly digesting carbohydrates, their blood sugar initially spiked, followed by a sharp crash a few hours later. The MRI confirmed that this crash in blood glucose intensely activated a brain region involved in addictive behaviors, known as the nucleus accumbens.

Dr. Robert Lustig, Professor of Pediatrics in the Division of Endocrinology at the University of California, a pioneer in decoding sugar metabolism, weighed in on the featured research in an article by NPR:

“As Dr. Robert Lustig... points out, this research can’t tell us if there’s a cause and effect relationship between eating certain foods and triggering brain responses, or if those responses lead to overeating and obesity.

'[The study] doesn’t tell you if this is the reason they got obese,' says Lustig, 'or if this is what happens once you’re already obese.' Nonetheless... he thinks this study offers another bit of evidence that 'this phenomenon is real.'”

Previously, Dr. Lustig has explained the addictive nature of sugar as follows:

"The brain's pleasure center, called the nucleus accumbens, is essential for our survival as a species... Turn off pleasure, and you turn off the will to live... But long-term stimulation of the pleasure center drives the process of addiction... When you consume any substance of abuse, including sugar, the nucleus accumbens receives a dopamine signal, from which you experience pleasure. And so you consume more.

The problem is that with prolonged exposure, the signal attenuates, gets weaker. So you have to consume more to get the same effect -- tolerance. And if you pull back on the substance, you go into withdrawal. Tolerance and withdrawal constitute addiction. And make no mistake, sugar is addictive."

Overcoming Bad Habits, Cravings and establishing new Healthier Habits.

Overcoming Bad Habits, Cravings and establishing new Healthier Habits.The temptations of sugary beverages and deserts are all around us and sometimes the cravings can get the best of you. So here is more information that could help you understand what you are going through and help you get through it.

Re-aligning our biological or neurological  pathways is one of the most powerful things people experience when they go through the transformation process. And it happens, of course, whether you know about it or not. I believe that being consciously aware of the process can be an advantage, especially in terms of “relapse prevention.” In this context, I’ll say relapse is completely falling back into old and unhealthy eating habits.

Think of it this way – the old circuitry in our brains is like a dry river bed. It’s always there, and as long as you’re consciously diverting the energy flow in a new direction, it’ll remain inactive. However, if we drift back into our old style of thinking, coping and behaving, slowly but surely, it’ll eventually get to a point where it’s like a damn bursts and the energy of those past patterns and it’s like water gushing through the river bed again. When this happens, the pull of those cravings and thoughts may even be stronger than they were before. Anyone who’s yo-yo dieted, losing weight for a few months, only to fall back into unhealthy eating habits, and subsequently gaining all the weight back and more, has first-hand experience of this.

The good news is, there’s a solution and a sustainable one at that.

Albert Einstein said," The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting different results".

Once we realize that what we did before we started with the diet and the training is what got us where we were before in the first place, we can understand that we can not go back to that same place or we end up right back where we started and in some people even worse than before.

DO NOT SET TIME LIMITS ON YOUR GOALS OR YOU WILL FALL RIGHT BACK INTO THE SAME OLD ROUTINE ONCE YOU'VE FINISHED THAT TIME FRAME!!!

Please understand you did not get in the shape you're in overnight and you can't permanently fix it overnight either.

When I work with people who are seemingly stuck in any unhealthy pattern, one of my first recommendations is to get moving with high-intensity interval training. Intense, interval training has been scientifically shown to double, even triple, the amount of fat the body burns, compared to longer duration (an hour or more) of moderate intensity exercise. It does this by boosting mitochondria size and number within cells and that can dramatically increase the oxidation and metabolism of stored body-fat for many hours after your workout is over. That means the ”calories burned” reading on exercise equipment is very under reported. What we really want is to burn more fat calories all day not just while we are doing our workout.

Another one of the powerful benefits of intense interval training is that is releases healthy amounts of neurotransmitters called catecholamines (dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine), which satisfy the primary reward centers of the brain, boost energy and further accelerate fat loss. These reward centers all too often become chemically depleted by our modern way of life (inactivity, high stress levels, all work no play lifestyles). When neurotransmitter levels burn out, it can make us vulnerable to bad habits like binge eating.

Another fact is many of us get caught up taking fat burners and become chemically dependent of these products because they too will stimulate neurotransmitters as well. Sad thing is once you stop taking them you fall right back into the same old trap and that's if your training or not. Remember anytime you place a chemical in the body it will have side effects.

More good news: Intense training also increases endorphin and serotonin levels (which make the brain happy); so much so, that over a period of a few months, it is more effective in treating depression than the most widely prescribed (212 million prescriptions written last year) anti-depressant drugs. And what do you know, the intense exercise no side effects which can’t be said for the prescription drugs.

Once our bodies start responding hormonally and we start to feel the positive effects of our efforts we can easily establish new habits that will keep us in shape and motivated to continue. Remember the body adapts to its environment. Remove the toxic fast foods and sugar from your diet and push your body to its limits and you will see results that will amaze you.

The biggest obstacle to overcome is to kick the addiction of sugar and it's harmful effects on the body. Here's another quick tip that will help with the cravings, L-Glutamine taken before every meal and a healthy dose before bed time will also aid you in overcoming the sugar addiction and cravings for other foods. Now combine proper nutrition along with intense interval training and you are fueling your body and your brain for success.

So here’s my recommendation: If you want to flip the switch from an unhealthy to a healthy appetite and enjoy all the benefits which come with that, be sure to incorporate high-intensity interval training into your training program. It will help you break free from old patterns and crazy cravings. It will also help you create new ones. And that, in turn, will help you enjoy improved results that you can sustain for a long, long time.

Make sure you are eating plenty of saturated fats, coconut oil, butter, animal fats that will actually turn on the fat burning capabilities of your body and may even lower unhealthy levels of cholesterol and triglycerides. Avoid Trans-fats and vegetable oils at all cost  they are unhealthy and loaded with Omega 6 fattty acids that cause inflammation in the gut and throughout the entire body. These oils will make you unhealthy cholesterol sky rocket. Also  by eating the saturated fats they will release you of the cravings for sugar!  ATTENTION: These fats will NOT  mke you fat! They will actually help you burn fats by training the body to use fats for energy. I've known this for years and science is starting to catchup too!