Comfort Eating

How many of you believe you comfort eat?

Well, I'm not even sure that's a real thing.

It's been given the grand title 'Comfort Eating' but is that what it really is?

By calling it 'comfort eating', it sounds like everyone who overeats sugary or starchy carb foods has some deep emotional connection to food that is impossible to break from without expensive counselling, when the truth of the matter is so much easier!  It's not comfort eating at all.  It's an addiction to sugar!

Do you crave sugary, sweet foods, like cakes and chocolate and sweets?  Or do you crave savoury foods like toast, pastry goods, chips?

Either way, you are receiving a MASSIVE dose of blood glucose (or blood sugar) when you consume these foods.  So high in fact that your body over reacts with insulin and strips your body of that blood glucose really fast.

Now a bit of science: sugary foods and starchy carbs, like chips, bread, pastry, rice, pasta etc. turn to glucose as soon as you eat them - glucose is sugar.  An insulin release is triggered by glucose in your blood as too high blood glucose can be very bad for you, fatal even.  The insulin ensures that the glucose gets stored in your muscles and liver (by the way, this is why weight training is so good as the higher your muscle to fat ratio, the larger the scope for storing glucose before it is turned to fat).  Any excess glucose that cannot be stored in the muscles and liver is converted to fatty acids and stored in your fat cells.

Your brain can only use glucose as a fuel source.

So, once your body has dumped excess insulin into your system and stripped you of all that glucose you end up feeling just as hungry as had you not just consumed a plate of fish and chips or that pile of toast or chunk of cake!

As your brain is now starved of fuel, you can't think straight so you panic or comfort eat more of the same!

Your body is looking always for homeostasis - a feeling of balance and so every time you dump excess glucose into your system and your body overreacts with insulin stripping you of that glucose, you feel the need to do it all over again!

But this way of eating just swings the pendulum too far in either direction each time.

Do you also lack energy and sometimes get irritable and cranky when you are hungry?  This is your body's response the the roller coaster of a ride you force it on with these food choices.  But it doesn't have to be this way!

The solution?

Go cold turkey.  Give up sugar and refined processed carbohydrates - and anything with flour in it*! Make sure you eat regular snacks of healthy foods like nuts and raw veggies - don't trick your brain with low fat and reduced calorie, slimline foods and drinks.

I swear you will feel amazing!  You will have more energy and you will feel less irritable and that is a promise!




*That's bread, cakes, pasta, batter, chips, crisps, pastry - you know!