Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar) (10 page)

Sample Food Diary

Keeping a food diary is one way to make an honest assessment of what you eat so you can see where to make adjustments in your diet. It is also useful because it may reveal times that you are eating for reasons that aren’t hunger driven. Below is an example of the type of information that you should record.

TIME

7:30 a.m.

FOOD/DRINK CONSUMED

Brown sugar cinnamon Pop-Tarts

HOW MUCH?

1 package (2 tarts)

WHY DID I EAT IT?

Hungry for breakfast—on way to work

TOTAL SUGAR

30g

TIME

1 p.m.

FOOD/DRINK CONSUMED

Frontega chicken panini on focaccia bread from Panera Bread

HOW MUCH?

1 sandwich

WHY DID I EAT IT?

Out to lunch with people from work

TOTAL SUGAR

7g

TIME

4 p.m.

FOOD/DRINK CONSUMED

Coke and Reese’s peanut butter cups

HOW MUCH?

1 12 oz. can 1 package

WHY DID I EAT IT?

Felt myself fading

TOTAL SUGAR

39g + 21g=60g

TIME

7 p.m.

FOOD/DRINK CONSUMED

Stouffer’s mac and cheese

HOW MUCH?

1 package

WHY DID I EAT IT?

Dinner

TOTAL SUGAR

8g

TIME

9:30 p.m.

FOOD/DRINK CONSUMED

Oreo cookies

HOW MUCH?

3 cookies

WHY DID I EAT IT?

Craving something sweet

TOTAL SUGAR

14g

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HERE
.

FOOD FOR THOUGHT

In your food diary:

• Identify the 5 foods that you consumed that were highest in carbohydrates
.

• Identify the 5 foods that you consumed when you were not necessarily hungry
.

• Identify the 5 foods that you liked or enjoyed eating the best, even if they weren’t the healthiest option
.

• Identify the 5 foods that you consumed that you think were good, healthy choices
.

STEP 3

The New Science of Sugar Addiction

“
The data is so overwhelming the field has to accept it. We are finding tremendous overlap between drugs in the brain and food in the brain
.”

—
NORA VOLKOW, DIRECTOR, NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON DRUG ABUSE

In this chapter we cover the science behind sugar addiction. It is a bit technical, as most science is, but we have summarized the key findings for you up front. If you want to know the details and are interested in learnisng more about how our brains change when we become addicted to food and other subtances, read on. If you trust us and don’t really care about the details of the science, then feel free to skip to
Step 4
.

We are entering a new scientific era in addiction research. Up until this point, addiction has been synonymous with drugs of abuse, like cocaine and heroin. But now, more and more people are developing addictions to nondrug substances and activities, which can be just as dangerous and debilitating. For example, according to psychiatrists, people can be addicted to sex, gambling, and even video games.
¹
The broadening of the field isn’t meant to detract from the devastation and havoc that drug addiction can cause, but rather it highlights that people’s lives can be turned upside down by abuse of other things too, not just drugs.

HOW YOU FEEL

You never feel satisfied when you eat healthy food.

WHAT SCIENCE TELLS US

Your brain has been changed by constant overeating of sugars. Dopamine, a neurochemical involved in reward and pleasure, is not functioning normally.

HOW YOU FEEL

You feel like you need to keep eating and eating to feel satisfied.

WHAT SCIENCE TELLS US

You have developed tolerance to sugar-rich food.

HOW YOU FEEL

You feel cranky and irritable when you are on a diet.

WHAT SCIENCE TELLS US

This is a sign of withdrawal; your brain is reacting to the lack of opioid stimulation that it is used to getting when you overeat sugars.

HOW YOU FEEL

You constantly crave certain foods.

WHAT SCIENCE TELLS US

Your brain is reacting to the cues in your environment that are normally associated with sugar-rich foods.

Some people use the term
addiction
rather loosely and say that they are addicted to surfing the Web, shopping, playing basketball, or any number of things that bring them pleasure. But there is a major difference between something being pleasurable and giving us joy and something being addictive.

What Is an Addiction?

Doctors use specific criteria to assess whether a person is addicted to substances such as alcohol, cocaine, or opiates. In order to ensure that doctors follow similar guidelines when making this diagnosis,
the
Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders
(
DSM
), a book published by the American Psychiatric Association, outlines the criteria. In order to meet the diagnostic criteria for having an addiction to drugs, one must engage in at least three of the seven criteria listed in the
DSM
, and outlined in the figure below, over the course of a twelve-month period.

As you can see from the figure, several different things happen when someone becomes addicted. A more simplistic way to view addiction can be seen in the diagram on
this page
. As we review these criteria in greater depth, think about how they relate to your own behavior around food.

When a person is addicted to a drug of abuse, he ingests large quantities of the addictive substance when it initially becomes available in order to obtain the desired feelings of pleasure, or experience
a high. This large initial consumption is sometimes referred to as a binge. The term
binge
is something that we normally think about with respect to eating, but people can binge on drugs as well. The most common binge drug is alcohol, but this can occur with illicit drugs, too.

With continued use, the brain and body develop a tolerance to the substance. This means that the person keeps taking the drug to try to experience a high, but receptors in the reward centers of the brain do not detect the substance in the same way as before, thus he needs more and more of the drug in order to feel the same high that he used to get from smaller amounts of the drug. To relate this to eating, tolerance is best demonstrated by the potato-chip phenomenon: We can’t eat just one. Something compels us to want to eat more and more of them.

CYCLE OF ADDICTION