Weight Loss for Food-Lovers with Molly Zemek
Episode- Finding a solution, not a quick fix
Summary
On this episode of the Weight Loss for Food-Lovers podcast, Molly talks about the unhealthy relationship that many people have with food and why these underlying thoughts are not your fault. Many people view food as a constant companion that helps us express or deal with emotions or uncertain situations in life, but the truth is that food is not your friend. Food is an inanimate object that isn’t capable of caring about you or serving you in any way.
This may be a jarring statement to many people who have run to food through life’s ups and downs because it is the easiest way to feel better in the moment. But it is important to pause and take some time to identify the underlying thoughts you have in this relationship with food and ask yourself what results you are getting from your current setup.
It may be helpful to be reminded that the human brain was set up to encourage survival, so every time we eat our brains send us a hit of the hormone dopamine that provides pleasure or happiness. In fact, with certain foods like sugar, the dopamine level released is comparable to the amount released during the consumption of opioids and it can create the same level of compulsion to repeat the behavior as well. So when you feel compelled to overeat, perhaps in association with an emotion, know that your brain is just doing its job to keep you in a state of comfort.
This is why traditional diets don’t work, because they focus on your willpower to deprive yourself of certain foods or meet certain exercise goals every day, which is not sustainable for a brain that is used to being rewarded for eating. The way forward is to recognize what hunger feels like, to think about why you are hungry, and to ask yourself if you are really hungry or if you are overeating for emotional reasons. On the next episode, we will be discussing how to recognize genuine hunger.
Topics Covered
· Many of us view food as our constant companion
· Identifying your underlying thoughts
· Our brains were created to reward us for taking care of ourselves
· Why traditional diets don’t work
· You are in charge of your relationship with food
Key Quotes
“For a lot of us, food is very much a companion.”
“Food is not your friend.”
“Food doesn’t care about you at all, in fact. It is completely neutral.”
“Thoughts are the biggest determinant of how we will choose to interact with what we eat.”
“If you struggle with saying ‘no’ to food…it’s not your fault.”
“The reason why traditional diets don’t work is because they’re just quick fixes.”
“Traditional diets don’t address why we tend to overeat in the first place.”
“When did you learn to manage your emotional life?”
Links Mentioned
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