No one wants to overeat. And definitely not for years, becoming overweight and ending up with a high risk of diabetes or heart disease - yet an alarming number of us are doing just that. For many of us, it’s not a lack of willpower, but rather that our appetites and food choices are being led astray by ancient, instinctive brain circuits, following the rules of a survival game that no longer exists. - Stephan J. Guyenet, “The Hungry Brain”
Unfortunately for us, we have evolved with a preference for all things sweet, salty, fatty and calorie dense (bonus points if it’s a combo of them). This drive to consume the highest calorie food options that require the least amount of effort served us well when food was scarce, but in a relatively short space of time, our food environment has drastically changed but this primitive drive still exists within us. There is an abundance of food choices, and as an unfortunate byproduct of food companies bids to have you pick their product, a lot of this food is cheap, convenient and calorie dense.
This can make maintaining a healthy weight difficult, and losing weight even more of a battle as the longer you diet and the more body fat you lose, the more intensely your brain will drive you to crave high calorie options. These cravings can be powerful as they are designed to keep you alive, and willpower will only get you so far - so how can we go about outsmarting our instincts, and making the dieting/maintenance process more manageable?
FIX YOUR FOOD ENVIRONMENT
Create an environment that doesn’t require you to draw on your willpower all the time. Firstly, this means getting rid of most or all tempting, high calorie food options from your home and/or workspace - in particular, things that are very visible, like cookies in jars on counters or chocolate bars on your work desk. The simplest way to not eat something is to just not have it around!
Secondly, reduce your exposure to food cues. Pack things away in cupboards and in containers in the fridge. When we sense a calorie dense food (see, smell etc.), dopamine (a chemical that reinforces our behaviour) levels start to rise, encouraging us to consume the food. (Hint: maybe all those foodporn accounts aren’t such a great idea).
Thirdly, create effort barriers to food. They don’t have to be huge (i.e. locking things away), but even something as small as having to move a few containers, peel something instead of having it already cut up etc. will mean you’re less likely to consume it if not hungry.
MANAGE YOUR APPETITE
If your brain thinks you’re starving, it will eventually wear you down - a good comparison given by Stephan is how you can will yourself to hold your breath for so long, but like eating, breathing is something we need to do to survive so your body will eventually force you to take a breath.
A bit of a no-brainer, but choose foods that will fill you up - yes, you can hit your calories with calorie dense treats, bread etc. but it will leave you hungry if your calories get low! So prioritise lots of fibrous veg and lean protein.
While we know that “junk” foods in moderation won’t harm our progress if they’re factored into our calories, they CAN make it much more difficult for us when dieting. When you eat a highly rewarding (think salty, sugary, fatty foods) on a calorie starved brain, it goes into overdrive, signalling you to eat MORE of this food to bridge the energy gap...the same problem does not exist if we eat moderately palatable, more whole foods like lean meats, veggies etc. because we don’t get the same dopamine rush when we eat them.
BEWARE OF FOOD REWARD
Our ancestors did not have access to the highly palatable combinations of fat, sugars and salts that we have now. Even when not in starvation mode, we have evolved to pick sources of food that have these qualities as they signify calorific density. Foods that have these highly palatable combinations can make our brains ignore all satiety cues and keep eating - think about when you’ve finished a big meal and think you couldn’t possibly eat anymore, but somehow grow a second stomach when someone mentions dessert.
When choosing sweets, it may help dieters to choose foods that are closer to their natural state and do not have the highly rewarding properties that things like brownies and cookies do - eg. having fruit for dessert.
MAKE SLEEP A PRIORITY
Getting enough sleep and getting QUALITY sleep has a huge impact on our eating behaviour and will help us make better choices. This can’t be understated.
Even if sleeping at the right times and for the right amounts of time, your sleep may not be of good quality and you may be getting hunger signals at the wrong time if your circadian rhythm has been disrupted, which is common in our society as we wake and sleep at different times and bring sources of artificial light into bed with us. To help with this, try to get lots of bright, blue spectrum light (sunlight ideally) around midday, and limit this type of light as much as possible in the hours leading up to bed - replace full-spectrum light bulbs with warm ones, put your phone on night shift, use f.lux on your laptop.
MOVE YO BODY
Join a gym (I hear House of Pain is great 😉). Exercise helps us reduce bodyfat by a) making us expend more calories and b) may encourage a lower body fat “set point” in the brain.
MANAGE STRESS
Stress, biologically, is interpreted as a form of threat. Some people’s response to this is to lose their appetite, but a lot of us are stress eaters. If I had a dollar for every time someone told me they are an emotional eater or a stress eater I would probably have like…$90. Identify your stressors - sometimes we’re stressed and we don’t even know why. Mind-map it out - what’s stressing me? What can I work with/accept? What can I change? Getting it all out on paper and forming some actionable steps to tackling the problem can help HUGELY.
Another way to cope with stress is to practice mindfulness and meditation...easier said than done, but like with anything, the more your practice it, the easier it becomes. A lot of our stressors are associated with what MIGHT happen or what happened, not what is actually happening right now...by focusing on the present moment, we can calm ourselves down and get some more constructive thoughts going on.
You can also try to form a new habit to engage in when you’re stressed - go for a walk, come to the gym (ayyy), have a bath, do some reading. If you have made yourself a good food environment that’s clear of temptations and/or has lots of food barriers, then hopefully this new habit will be easy to form.