How to Break Your Food Addiction, Lose Weight, and Feel Healthy Again

There's leftover pizza and cake in the fridge, and they're calling out. What can a dieter do? No matter how they try to resist or distract themselves, the cravings resurface, over and over. But ultimately the battle is lost. It's a trip to the fridge and out comes the temptress foods. And now that the dam has broken, out comes the ice cream, cookies, and whatever else the craving mind can think of. Now that failure has set in, may as well go for it. And so it goes until the addict is sitting on the couch, feeling uncomfortably full, and depressed. Again. What is an addict to do?

Is Food Really an Addiction?
At some point, every overweight person recognizes that food has become an addiction. And science backs them up. It's long been established that certain foods act on the same areas of the brain as cocaine, triggering the dopamine reward system, taking over the hormonal responses that drive a person to consume what is bad for them--all while the rational, intelligent mind battles fruitlessly to stop it.

You Can't Quit Food
Unlike an addiction to heroin, cigarettes, or alcohol, the addict can't go cold turkey. Quitting food is not an option. But here's the good news. Not all foods affect the brain in this way. When was the last time someone said, "I have an overwhelming craving to go nuts binging on carrots"? Never.

Scientists know that certain foods trigger the body's reward system: foods unnaturally high in sugar, fat, and salt. The villains in this scenario are processed and highly refined foods. Whole foods are never implicated with any degree of credibility.

But then there's the lingering belief that whole foods are bland, tasteless, and boring. Nothing can replace a favorite processed food. It's the bad foods that taste best, right? Here's more good news. That's a lie.

When Good Food Tastes Good
When a person is truly hungry (and off their addiction to processed and refined foods) whole foods are stunningly flavorful. A great experiment for the non-believer is to fast for about 20 hours. Then try some steamed cauliflower. What could be more flavorless and blander? But something magical happens. It's subtle at first, but the longer someone avoids the toxic, addictive foods, the more intense it becomes. The sense of smell and taste begin to detect an almost fierce flavor that was never noticed before. It's not uncommon for the graduate of food rehab to find themselves loving foods that they wouldn't even remotely consider eating in the past. Strawberries, avocados, sweet potatoes, even beans and broccoli, are a whole new gastronomic experience. Throw in some herbs and spices and the possibilities are endless.

Quitting cold turkey just became a possibility, because now quitting all foods isn't necessary. Only the villainous processed and refined ones. It would be a rare individual who could overeat whole foods.

When it's Almost Impossible to Gain Weight
A pound of carrots contains approximately 186 calories. A typical woman would need to eat somewhere around 10 pounds of carrots a day. Of course, no one could (or want to!) eat this many carrots, but there are endless combinations of whole food choices, low in calories and high in nutrient density, that when combined provide an endless array of meal choices to satisfy any palate--provided they stay away from the addictive food substitutes.

Breaking the Addiction
Ask any addict and they will tell you that breaking an addiction can be hard. Extremely hard. We need a way of breaking the food addiction.

There's a trend that's been growing in the weight loss and healthy living world. And once again, science is backing it up. It's called intermittent fasting. While it sounds contrary to past thinking, the people in the white lab coats are getting behind it in droves.

David Sinclair, biologist and professor of genetics, Mark Mattson, a professor of neuroscience at John Hopkins, and a host of other prominent scientists continue to research and promote intermittent fasting to improve healthspan and lifespan. The evidence continues to mount, supporting the benefits. But how can it help with breaking food addiction?

A visit to any drug rehabilitation facility will provide ample evidence that the first days of breaking an addiction are the hardest. As time passes it becomes easier. Breaking the food addiction is no different. Intermittent fasting is an excellent tool to get through those first days

Easing the Transition
Reports from those applying intermittent fasting commonly state that those first 3 to 5 days are when cravings are strongest. After this period, they quickly fade and all but vanish. As a bonus, increased energy, clarity of mind, and an overall feeling of improved physical health are reported. Intermittent fasting can help speed up and ease the transition to better eating habits, while also offering one other important benefit.

The additional bonus is an effect called autophagy. The discovery of autophagy won Yoshinori Ohsumi a Nobel prize in 2016. In essence, he demonstrated that during an appropriate period of fasting, the body enters a state of cell repair and renewal. It is believed that during constant food intake, without a fasting period, the body skips this important stage. The autophagy state allows the body to rebuild and renew itself.

Why those First Few Days of Withdrawal are Toughest
Another concept gaining popularity involves the gut biome and its importance in human biology. When food intake changes, unhealthy members of the gut biome are rebelling. Over the next few days, as the gut repopulates with healthier constituents, things settle down. Not only do cravings subside, but a new, healthier microbiome develops.

A word of caution. Many diet books and pundits will say that a little straying here and there won't hurt. If you view certain foods as addictive, then treat them like any drug addict would. There's no such thing as a harmless little bit of heroin to an addict.