TheBrainChangingDiet

We are human.  We seek security and comfort, and above all we seek food.  The fundamental question of human beings… “when will I eat?” has been almost magically converted into “what will I eat?”. One of the problems that we face with overeating, is that we have engineered our environment to never go hungry. Food abundance has ensured that whenever we even think about being hungry, we eliminate that sensation with a snack that is within arms reach. Over time, and because of our exposure to constant food availability, we have learned to eat whenever we get the slightest feeling of hunger instead of eating when we need to eat.

Being hungry does not mean that you have to eat immediately. It does not mean that you are going to starve if you don’t eat within the next half hour. But that is how we act. We say that unless we get something to eat that we simply can’t function. We have almost become afraid of the sensation of hunger, with food being our saviour. But this was not always the case.

Most people cannot tolerate being hungry, because they have trained themselves to be that way. Hunger is a natural process. It was not designed to paralyze you. Hunger does not mean that you must stop everything immediately, and find food. But for many people it does. Hunger is a healthy reminder that you will probably have to eat something pretty soon or later on in the day. If you didn’t get hungry you wouldn’t eat that much. But you don’t have to eat every time you feel hungry.

If you eat every time you feel hungry then you give your brain a flawless strategy to get you to eat whenever it wants. Remember your brain loves sugar, fat and calories and it doesn’t care what you look like naked. It is you, or your “consciousness” that refrains from gorging on cookies all day. Deep down however, some of your other brain structures are signaling you to give in to those urges. And the way that these structures get you to eat those delicious treats is to make you slightly hungry, just enough to get you to indulge.

Think about it. When are the most common times when you snack on little treats? For most people it is in between meals – the midmorning snack, or the mid-afternoon sugar lift. Others enjoy snacking when they are preparing meals, or when they have to wait for their meal to be ready. For other people they just have to eat the minute they come home from work. At all of these times your not really hungry, you are JUST HUNGRY ENOUGH.

That’s all you brain needs, it just needs to give you the right stimulus to get you to eat that bag of chips. For most of us that means just a little bit hungry, or a little “pickish”. But have you ever felt that urge to eat, then you forgot about it and 10 minutes later you realized that you were not even hungry anymore? Congratulations, you have just practiced some hunger tolerance.

In order to stop your incessant snacking, you need to re-learn to become comfortable with being just a little bit hungry. At first it may be a bit uncomfortable, but that is only because you have trained yourself to be that way. You have trained yourself to always eat when you feel a certain cue from your stomach (brain!). When you practice slight hunger tolerance you will quickly learn that you do not have to always eat when you feel hungry, and the sensation will often go away. 

Think of it this way.  Hunger is like a conversation that your stomach is having with your brain.  Your stomach may be temporarily empty but that doesn’t mean you are starving or even that your body needs fuel at the moment.  Your stomach is like a small child that hasn’t learned the meaning of later or patience.  But your stomach can be trained to wait just a little while and food will be available. You can learn to notice signals of hunger and defer the desire to eat immediately. The critical point to understand is that this takes PRACTICE not just understanding.  So don’t let your tummy throw a tantrum!  Your mindful brain is wiser and capable of exerting executive control.  Before too long being a little bit hungry will be a cue from your body and not a command.  After all we don’t immediately put on pajamas and go to bed every time we feel sleepy!

Practice patience and your hunger pangs can be dealt with appropriately. Over time the screaming and crying will turn into a polite request and save you from diving head first into the nearest cookie jar.

Seeing isn’t just believing, as far your brain is concerned seeing is also doing.  And the players in this little game are the recently discovered “mirror neurons”.  What does this have to do with eating.  Well it appears that merely observing other people eating food has some very interesting effects in your neurons.  These amazing brain cells are giving scientists a lot of insight into human learning and behavior, and a lot of this is critical to our understanding of the psychology of eating.

The discovery of mirror neurons in 1995 by Iaccomo Rizzolati of the University of Parma was a very happy accident. This breakthrough has had a profound effect on our understanding of how the human brain functions. But to do so requires a little background information.  There are a hundred billion neurons in the human brain with hundreds of TRILLIONS of connections.  Neurons, or nerve cells, differ from other kinds of cells in that over the course of an animals life these cells generally do not divide or regenerate, so  basically the neurons you have now are the ones that you were born with. This is why damage to the nervous system like head traumas, spinal cord injuries and strokes can have such devastating consequences.  Because nerve cells live so long individual neurons are very specialized  – they act in a very consistent way.  For example, a motor neuron will turn on to signal a particular muscle so that we are able to move voluntarily.  That way an intention you have in your brain can result in a specific action, such as picking up a cup.  On the other hand a particular mirror neuron will not only turn on when you make a specific action, it will also turn on or “fire” when you observe someone else making that action.   

So how did this amazing breakthrough occur?  Well, as the story goes, one day a researcher went into the lab to check up on the monkeys. These monkeys were wearing measuring devices on their heads that recorded individual neuronal activity associated with behavior and movement. While going about his routine tasks the researcher helped himself to some peanuts that were placed a few meters away from a monkey cage. As he picked up some nuts he was startled by the sound of the monitor buzzing wildly. Why was he so surprised? Well, because the monkey was not moving! 

An enormous amount of research has been initiated to understand what happened. It was then confirmed that area’s of your brain that were thought to be specifically associated with movement will “fire” or activate when you watch somebody do something, JUST AS IF YOU HAD DONE IT YOURSELF. Thus the term mirror neurons was born. At this time it looks as if monkey’s and primates have mirror neurons  (giving a new twist to the old saying “monkey see, monkey do”) but human mirror neurons appear to fire more readily and in a more sophisticated manner.  For example, in humans, mirror neurons will not only fire when you watch another person performing a certain action, they will also fire at a photograph or video of another person performing that action.  

Have you ever heard that you are the average of the five people that you spend most time with?

Mirror neurons allow us to learn and be influenced by others. Some scientists, such as world renowned neurologist  V.S. Ramachandran, believe it is mirror neurons which are responsible for the extraordinary advancements of the human species. For example if you are a bear, and suddenly your environment gets cold, you would need a few million years of evolution to build up polar bear type layers of fat and fur. If you are human, you watch your father killing a bear, skinning it and using the fur as a coat, and as you watch it your mirror neurons start firing and you learn. So instead of going through millions of years of evolution you have learned to adapt to your environment in ONE generation.

We have mirror neurons because we are extremely social beings. They would not have much use if you did not interact with other humans. Mirror neurons are what allow us to feel what other people are feeling. If you have you ever watched a football game where somebody got a terrible injury and you grimaced in anguish, then you know what I am talking about….you had this response because at some level you felt like it was you getting injured. Or maybe you a watching a sad movie and you begin to feel a bit sad yourself. These are just some examples of your mirror neurons at work.

We are not aware of mirror neuron activity. They function in the background firing automatically in response to our environmental observations. We are constantly and involuntarily reacting to the actions of everyone around us. When it comes to maintaining a healthy weight the eating behavior of the people around you can have profound effects on your dieting success. You see, mirror neurons can be your best friend or your worst enemy. In our brains they reproduce the activities that we are observing. So if you see somebody eating a chocolate brownie, “chocolate brownie eating” parts of your brain get activated. Additionally the emotional part of your brain remembers how nice it was to eat a chocolate brownie and so it increases your desire to eat one. Even just looking at photos, particularly of people who appear to be enjoying the food, can activate these areas of our brains and motivate us to eat. The more our mirror neurons are exposed to eating, the more powerful the brain activation and the more intense the craving.

But there is even more to the story. As you watch your friends eating the chocolate brownies your mirror neurons are telling your brain about brownie eating, but because you are not ACTUALLY eating the brownie your pleasure centers are not getting any stimulation. This amps up your cravings even more, because now your brain begins to ANTICIPATE what eating the brownie would be like. You start to think how delicious it would taste. You think how the texture would feel in your mouth and how you would feel if you just took a bite. This is all the workings of your brain, as it goes through your past experiences of eating foods similar to the chocolate brownie.

You are doing well if you have still managed to hold out, but next comes the biggest craving. The greatest brain activation is achieved when anticipation is paired with a degree of uncertainty. So you have your limbic system telling you how delicious it will be, your mirror neurons are activating the movement patterns that are associated with eating the chocolate brownie, and your pre-frontal cortex is saying “No please, I have to stick to my diet!”. Under these conditions of “it might happen, it might not happen”, humans are extremely motivated to seek pleasure because we get an intense reward when it does occur. This is what you constantly face when you see people eating foods that you desire but cannot have. It’s not long before the intense cravings finally overpower your willpower and you give in to temptation.  

The food industry knows about mirror neurons all too well. That’s why they place their food everywhere for you to see. They know that the more you are exposed to their advertisements the more you are likely to consume what they are selling. They are also extremely clever in how they present their product. Have you ever noticed that food manufacturers advertise their products by showing images of people consuming their products in a very fun and positive way. Manufacturers know that when you observe these scenarios the areas of your brain related to happiness and fun and pleasure get associated with their particular food or drink. Check it out the next time you watch an advertisement. Oh and isn’t it ironic that the actors are usually physically fit and very attractive? Its almost like consuming their product can help you with that too…..

For some people food is just fuel, for most of us it is more, sometimes a lot more.  Throughout most of our history our primary drive has been to seek out and acquire food. We have a built in mechanism to sustain this drive - our reward system. Whenever we eat food and sometimes when we just think about it, chemicals in our brain stimulate certain brain ares that give us a sensation of pleasure. 

Certain foods are more rewarding than others.  Scientists call this quality “palatability”.  When we say that a food is palatable, oftentimes we are referring to its taste. Here though, palatability refers to a food’s ability to stimulate our appetite and prompt us to eat more. Palatability of course involves taste, but it primarily involves our motivation to pursue certain foods. It’s the reason that when it comes to certain foods, we just can’t stop eating. 

What makes a food palatable?  A food’s palatability is largely dependent on the food’s ability to engage all of your senses. This experience is called your perception and is a subjective experience for all of us. It explains why you may like certain foods but your friend may not. We all have different perceptions on how something tastes, smells, looks or feels which in turn creates an experience that is unique to you.  Food that stimulates all of senses has the potential to create intense memories.  This was the basis for one of the most famous books of all time, Swann’s Way, usually called “A Remembrance of Things Past” by Marcel Proust.

When we describe food, people usually talk about taste.  When it tastes really good we say it is “delicious”.  But when we eat, taste is only one of the senses that use. We also describe the SMOOTH, CREAMY pleasure of our favorite chocolate cake, the RICH AROMA of our favorite coffee, or the CRISPY texture of our favorite fried shrimp. Any food writer knows the importance of highlighting these characteristics to make the food seem more desirable and appetizing.

The food industry knows exactly how to create this experience for you, and they do everything in their power to provide a bite that will MELT in your mouth. Here is a short description of an entree that I picked up at a restaurant recently:

“Juicy fire–grilled chicken breast drizzled with our Jack Daniel’s^® glaze and some crispy Cajun–spiced fried shrimp with dipping sauce. Our creamy mashed potatoes and veggies seal the satisfaction. “

Now you may not be hungry, but just reading that will definitely tickle your taste buds. Just the words on the page will create a picture in your mind of what this dish would look, taste, smell and feel like in your mouth. All of this is packaged together to create a perception of the experience we would have if we could eat this meal right now. This perception sends massive anticipatory reactions to the pleasure centers of your brain and you say “ That SOUNDS scrumptious, I think I’ll have that!”

It is this anticipation of stimulation which motivates you to eat long after your physical drives for food have been satisfied. It is why you can’t stop thinking about desert even though you have just started to eat your main course, because you know how delicious desert will be. Humans like to be entertained and have pleasure. The way food is presented to us in today’s society, entertainment and pleasure can easily be satisfied by simply going to your local restaurant.

So the next time you call something “creamy and moist”,  realize that you are probably not eating to satisfy your physical hunger, but instead to delight your senses. 

In this short presentation, Conner Hughes, Director of BrainChanging, describes the impact that the food industry has on your eating behaviors.

During this presentation you will learn :

 • How food stimulates the pleasure centers of your brain.

 • “Palatability” -- The key factor in food industry manipulation.

 • Why certain foods can become irresistible.

 • Why humans are so drawn to fat and sugar.

 • How food presentation and marketing stimulate cravings.

Normal human behavior dictates that we seek out activities which bring us pleasure or are rewarding, and thus contribute to our sense of well-being. The underlying system in your brain which is responsible for that subjective experience of pleasure is known as your Endogenous Reward System.

A key word here is endogenous, which means having an internal cause or origin.  That’s a critical concept and we will return to it in a moment. Your subjective experience of pleasure refers to the fact that we all get varying amounts of pleasure depending on the activities that we enjoy. This  experience is totally individual; for some people it might be reading a book, other people might prefer interacting with their friends, and of course almost everybody relishes eating the foods that they like. 

These gratifying experiences are produced in one the older parts of the brain, sometimes called “the mammalian brain”.  The scientific name for this region is the “limbic system”.  Located deep inside the brain, the limbic system is responsible for the feelings and emotions we experience from our body.  It is intimately involved with learning and memory.  Our limbic system basically works to tell us how we “feel about something” so that the cortical area of the brain knows how to think about it or do so something about it.

The Limbic System contains two structures, commonly called the “pleasure centers” of the brain. These structures are called the ventral tegmental area and the nucleus accumbens septi. Don’t worry about the names, basically what this means is that if you were to look at images of your brain then these areas would show a lot of activity when you are having a pleasurable experience. The crucial point here is that these pleasure centers are in close and constant communication with the more evolutionarily advanced area of your brain (the primate brain). Within this area there are two regions, the prefrontal cortex and the orbitofrontal cortex, that are very involved with our planning and actions. It is pretty obvious that if your limbic system tells your cortex that an activity is pleasurable that your cortex would want you to act by doing it again or planning to do it again!  

Here is the really important piece. Biochemically, the neurotransmitter dopamine is used to communicate between these various parts of your brain (there are others, but dopamine is the major player). Dopamine is an endogenous neurotransmitter which can be translated to mean “self-made drug”. Drug you say? Yes your brain makes drugs, and lots of them!

Typically, when we think of drugs we mean substances that we ingest or inject. In medical terms these would be referred to as exogenous drugs. But we now know that we also have endogenous drugs. For the sake of simplicity let’s call the exogenous drugs man-made drugs. So we have self-made drugs and man-made drugs. An example of a man-made drug is cocaine, a drug that induces your brain to release dopamine. Typically dopamine is a chemical released in certain areas of the brain when we experience something as pleasurable.  So cocaine produces the same feeling in your brain but doesn’t require you to do anything (except take the drug in one form or another) in order to get pleasure.  So dopamine is a “self-made” drug that makes us feel very happy or euphoric and cocaine is a man-made drug that does the same thing but it does so by cheating.

The problem that we now face is that we are often relying on man-made drugs rather than self-made drugs to allow us to feel pleasure. Nowhere is this more evident than in our relationship with food. Can food act like a drug? Absolutely. When we eat food our limbic system releases some dopamine into those pleasure centers. It’s a good strategy, your brain needs to reward you for eating food because it is essential to your survival. For most of humankind’s history food wasn’t necessarily very easy to come by and we needed the extra incentive of a reward to motivate us to pursue it.  So it has been very important for our survival to have these self made drugs.  They give us incentive to work hard for things that may not be immediately available because we anticipate a reward at the end.  But in today’s world, acquisition of food has really changed.  Not only is it readily available it is prepared, packaged, plentiful and palatable… it requires so little work we barely have to chew it! But our brains still compel us to seek reward, especially if we are stressed. So we engage in behaviors that stimulate production of those self-made drugs. 

This however, is not the whole story. Our physiologic well being is geared towards alway trying to maintain balance or equilibrium.  The medical term for this is homeostasis and it is essential to our health and survival.  Our endogenous drugs are designed to help us maintain homeostasis.  Exogenous drugs can easily upset this balance. Exogenous drugs stimulate your pleasure centers with unnatural intensity.  This can result in addiction which means balance is lost and pleasure seeking or reward seeking turns to pathological craving.  Modern day food offers a lots of convenience but are also highly stimulatory to our pleasure centers.  The food industry knows how your brain works and one of their major goals is to chemically enhance foods so they are more attractive to your pleasure centers. Think about it, when you eat a food that makes you produce self-made drugs and also contains man-made drugs, it acts as a super charged blast to the pleasure centers of our brain. We are in a sense programmed to pursue and consume. These altered foods taste delicious and make us feel better, so we are much more likely to eat them again.

Over the coming week, we are going to take a closer look at the food industry and how you can become addicted to food, just like you would to any other drug.