Eating Battle - Stomach Vs Brain

Are your "Eyes bigger than your Stomach" or do you "Eat to Live or Live to Eat".

Do you realize that your brain overrides the body's natural stomach enzymes and hormones saying "I'm Full"? The brain of most overweight people light up when they hear or see high calorie or sugary foods. The brain is activated by the sight or smell of these types of foods, and this then triggers the different areas of the brain into talking to each other (reward, emotion, memory, attention, and motor planning) making it hard for them to resist the temptation.

Scientists are now using a brain imaging technology to understand how the these resistant types of foods can overwhelm the built-in body's trigger to regulate the hunger and fullness. This is called "hedonic" vs "homeostatic" eating. What's the difference between the two?

Hedonic - Eating for Pleasure

• Seeing, smelling and even hearing the word "cake" activates areas of the brain involved in reward, emotion, memory and thinking. This triggers the release of dopamine, the brains "pleasure chemical"

Homeostatic - Eating for Survival

• When foods reach the stomach and intestines, chemical messengers slow down digestion and signal the brain to stop eating. Seeing cake isn't as tempting.

Scientists are currently looking at the aspects of how appetite works in the brain and why some people ignore their built-in fullness signals. They're hope that breakthroughs will lead to ways to retrain people's thinking about food or weight-loss drugs that can target certain brain areas. Currently the only way you can counteract these strong impulses is to control your lifestyle with restrained food intake and exercise. Say "NO" to that slice of cake or pie. There are other healthier choices out there that will satisfy you, which you can learn about by reading my other posts here on SnackSwap.com. "Swapping out junk food for healthier choices"

(*) Source: Susan Carnell, a research psychologist at the New York Obesity Research Center at Saint-Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and Columbia University