Food Compulsion/Addiction Part 2

I want to paraphrase a few powerful points in "The end of overeating" that are key.

#1 Cues: Activity in the brain is stimulated not only by food itself, but also by cues suggesting that food is nearby. This signal becomes a trigger of desire. Examples of this can be billboards, commercials, passing by restaurants, someone bringing doughnuts into the office or even someone mentioning eating out.

#2 Reward: Feeling like you have worked hard on eating healthy day after day and now you deserve a treat is a slippery slope. The act of putting the junk in your mouth triggers to many chemicals in the brain, which will cause the cravings and treat frequencies to get worse and worse. The regret that follows just makes this a viscous cycle.

#3 Habit: Over time, the act of eating highly rewarding food creates an automatic response. Once a script becomes imprinted in the brain, the behavior it dictates becomes so routine that we can respond before we're even conscious of a stimulus. Habits are learned slowly, but once they are in place, they are by their very nature difficult to break.

~Now that you know the who, what, why, how and where of food compulsions/addictions, join me next time to discover how to shatter their hold over you and destroy them FOREVER!