Getting High on Food

I would like to think that most people have a pretty sympathetic attitude towards addiction.

Whether it’s drink or drugs or gambling - people have a decent grasp of the predicament.

If you saw someone lying spaced out on the street, you wouldn't think: ‘Why doesn’t that person just pull themselves together?’

Or, if you hear of someone who has put themselves in huge financial difficulties due to a gambling addiction, you don’t think: ‘Why can’t he just do the lotto at the weekend like the rest of us?

Of course, when you do encounter people who adopt that type of condescending attitude, it’s usually because they have no direct experience of addiction.

That quickly changes once a friend or family member provides them with a ringside view of what happens when an addiction takes hold.

Then, when they get to see that addiction has got absolutely nothing to do with common sense, intelligence or rationality - their opinions start to soften.

While most of us take a sympathetic view towards those members of society who are battling addiction, we don’t bestow the same clemency upon ourselves.

Here’s a typical scenario.

You’re a busy mother-of-three trying to lose weight.

You make a solemn pledge to yourself that you’re going to live like a monk for six weeks.

For  the first three weeks, you’re on point.

Then, on Week 4, the wheels came off.

It started off innocently enough. You ate a few biscuits.

But it escalated quickly.

Suddenly you were like a human hoover.

Sweet or savoury, it didn’t matter, you were munching it down.

After 3 weeks of being diligent with everything you ate, it was like you stepped into a parallel universe.

In this new universe, there was no such things as calories.

In this universe, you could eat what you wanted and everyone still stayed lean, fit and strong.

It took you a couple of days to extract yourself from this blissful place, and when you did, the damage was horrific.

When you finally plucked up the courage to step on the scales, the number hit you like a hammer.

Standing there on your scales, the emotions were overwhelming.

You felt depressed. You hated yourself. You hated the world. You felt angry.

Worst of all, you felt ashamed.

You lambasted yourself: ‘Why can’t I be stronger. Why I am so weak-willed? Why do I have no backbone?’

You gave yourself a good, tight kicking.

If this story sounds familiar, I want you to go back to the start.

How would you react if you heard that a recovering drug addict or alcoholic relapsed?

Would you give them the kicking which you regularly inflict upon yourself?

Because here’s what you must understand.

Ultra-processed foods work in exactly the same way as any other addictive substance or activity.

For starters, they provide a turbo-charged shot of dopamine - the molecule of more - the pleasure hormone - the stuff that screams in your mind - MORE, MORE, MORE.

Moreover, the emulsifiers in ultra-processed foods shut down our body’s signalling system.

Basically, if we are eating a clean diet, and you eat a sufficient quantity of protein and fatty acids, hormones in your lower intestine will send signals to your brain saying: ‘You’ve had enough. You should stop eating now.’

Imagine eating two big baked potatoes with beans, or a breakfast of porridge with flaxseeds and chia seeds.

You will never overdose on porridge.

You’re never going to eat three baked potatoes.

But the same can’t be said for crisps, pastries, chocolates, and junk food.

We can eat that shit forever. Because that’s the way it has been engineered to be eaten.

And the calories are frightening.

It’s scary.

Within half-an-hour of absent minded munching, you could easily consume 3000 calories.

The big problem in modern society is that we are not being encouraged to see ultra-processed foods for what they are, which is - drugs which make you fat!

Governments are unwilling to confront the superpowers in the agriculture and food industries.

This means Big Business has been given a freehand to market and advertise pretty much as it pleases.

So we associate pizza with pleasure.

Crisps are crunchy and good fun and Gary Lineker loves them.

Children loves sweets and we love our children so of course we’re going to give them sweets.

It's an exact repeat of how the tobacco companies were able to keep governments in their pockets for decades.

Cigarettes cause cancer but it took an eternity before governments put warnings on cigarette packets to warn people of the danger of smoking.

Ultra processed foods will make us overweight and unwell.

But where are the signs in supermarkets warning the general public that like smoking, eating ultra-processed food poses a grave danger to our health?

That’s the world we live in.

The same foods which are sold to us as being a source of pleasure, comfort and indulgence are the very same foods that will make us overweight and unwell.

Obviously it’s impossible to go through life eating nothing but chicken and broccoli.

There are going to be times when you fall off the wagon.

That’s inevitable.

The trick is don’t beat yourself up too much.

See it for what it is.

Drugs make you high.

And so do processed foods.

They're addictive.

They're not designed to be eaten in moderation.

So, you relapsed.

It happens.

Get back to living healthy and clean.

And try to stay off the shit.

Because that's what it is.

It's just 💩

PH

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