Getting Back on Track with Healthy Eating Habits

Getting your healthy eating habits back on track is proving to be more difficult than we anticipated.

We make an effort. We beseech ourselves. We chastised ourselves. For our out-of-control eating, we seek counselling. We're hoping for a better day today, but by 10 a.m., we're shopping for any carb-laden leftovers we can find.

So, what exactly happened? Why did I give up so much control during the holidays? How could I be so desperate for a change but unable to make it happen?

All of these queries have the same answer: addictive cueing.

Identify Your Triggers

If you're having difficulties rewiring your eating patterns after the holidays, you're probably dealing with the severe cueing of a processed-food addiction you weren't even aware of. It explains why, during the holidays, we lose control. It explains why, with each seasonal meal, the loss of control worsens. It also explains why getting back on track becomes increasingly difficult. Addictive cueing, fortunately, also illuminates the route back to eating management and a healthy body.

In the mid-1980s, the story begins. As the amount of sugar, fat, and salt in processed foods rose and they became more widely available, the obesity/overweight percentage soared from roughly 45 percent of all Americans to over 70 percent in just 20 years.

As a result, millions of people all over the world now have addicted brain cells in the reward centre of their brain. Those cells have been trained to pump out a torrent of desire neurotransmitters in such high volume as to easily overcome any other source of behaviour control through Pavlovian conditioning.

Even though our frontal lobe begs us to stop, we continue to consume. We're dealing with a really unpleasant condition, but the key is to understand it as a brain mechanics issue. Anything that we identify with processed foods triggers a torrent of food cravings. Associative cues are what they're termed. Processed foods are incredibly addicting, and our brain has confused them with the need for actual nourishment.

Cues and Processed Foods

It's useful to remember that famine or starvation has been a major cause of death in the past. France endured ten famines in the 900s and 26 in the 1000s, according to Mark Bittman's book "Vegetable, Animal, Junk." During the 1840s, the potato blight killed millions of Irish people while English landowners profited by exporting food crops. When Britain occupied India, the same scenario occurred. As the English stole acreage for export crops, famines in India escalated from one every 100 years to one every three years.

In the 1870s, between 5 and 10 million people died. In the 1870s, Britain took over lands in China to cultivate tea, and the situation was similar in China. In the 1870s, it is estimated that 30 million Chinese people died. This happened in Ghana when the crops were switched to cocoa and coffee, and in Senegal when peanuts were introduced.

Every detail of survival food-seeking is recorded so that you can find the food again and prevent starvation. Your eating behaviour is dictated by the addicted or food-seeking brain whenever one of those details is noticed. It's a computer-generated response.

How to Recognize Your Eating Cues

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a million Americans die every two years from diet-related ailments such as heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and others due to a combination of strong addiction and survival instinct food-seeking. Everyone wants to give up processed foods but is unable to do so.

The key to regaining control of your eating habits is to pay attention to the cues that your brain has come to associate with processed foods. These indications are the reason you haven't been able to get back on track with your eating habits.

What exactly is a cue?

• Places. A trigger can be found anywhere you've consumed processed meals.
• People. Anyone with whom you've consumed processed foods is a trigger.
• Season of the year. If you ate processed meals around this time last year, you're likely to do so again this year.
• Settings. Funerals and weddings are well-known for causing overeating, but social gatherings, particularly holiday parties, are also high on the list.
• Substances. Sugar, flour, gluten, salt, dairy, processed fats, caffeine, and food additives are all potentially addictive.
• Triggers. Triggers include clothes, exercise, travel, holiday decorations, stress, exhaustion, emotions, and anniversaries.

Is there no way out? Not in the least. Is it going to take a long time to get rid of the addiction? Yes, of course.

Overcoming the flood of cued addictive cravings in the brain requires two steps.

The first is to completely avoid cues. This can be a lengthy and tedious procedure, but it is well worth it. When you start to have cravings for processed meals, pay attention to the following: So, what exactly happened? What were you watching at the time? Is this a signal to binge? With whom did you interact? Is that individual a tip-off to the trigger? As you become more aware of the origins of triggers, consider how you can avoid being exposed to that cue.

The second piece of advice is to plan ahead for unavoidable cue exposure. Carry on as if you were learning a new term in a foreign language. On one side of a piece of paper, write the cue. On the other hand, write the ramifications of consuming the yearned-for food. You're honing a powerful protection known as pain avoidance. You'll remember the agony, and your desire for eating will wane. You've got this!