I left off the last post with a description of how habits work. As we keep repeating an action we wear a neurological groove, making the action easier and more automatic every time we perform it. If you read Charles Duhigg’s book that I referenced yesterday you’ll learn about one way to disrupt a habit: basically, you have to figure out what the reward is and then substitute a new routine that will give you the same result without the negative consequences. For instance, and this is quite relevant here because it’s about eating, Duhigg analyzes the habit he’d formed of going down to the cafeteria every workday afternoon and getting a cookie. He gained five pounds, his wife let him know that she disapproved, and he set himself the task of changing the habit. What did he really want as his reward? he asked himself. Was it satisfaction of true hunger? Then he could eat an apple. Was it a shot of energy? Then he could get a cup of coffee. Or, perhaps less intuitively, did he just need a break, a chance to interact with people after sitting in front of his computer for several hours? He decided that last one was it. So he started getting up from his desk and looking for a chance to chat with people when the mid-afternoon munchies hit. (I haven’t gone back and re-read the relevant section, but I don’t believe he just started interrupting his co-workers as they were trying to concentrate.) He successfully changed his cookie habit. You can also simply remove the cue, if that’s possible. So that bag of cookies in your pantry that tempts you every time you open the door should just go. If the cookies aren’t there, you can’t eat them.
The second term I listed yesterday was “craving.” Do humans crave various foods or tastes? Yes we do. In other words, we strongly desire those things. Our craving for sweets is built in; no one has to teach a baby to like ice cream or a toddler to like candy. Two explanations come to the fore as to why we would have this craving: 1) sweet foods are rarely poisonous, and 2) sweet foods are usually energy rich. As everyone reading this knows, truly sweet foods in a natural state are rare, with ripe fruits and honey being the two most common. Interestingly, though, one sweet item that is still a big part of many babies’ diet is breast milk, which is fairly sweet since it has about 40% of its calories from lactose, a sugar found naturally in milk. Babies sure need to like the food that makes it possible for them to survive! We also crave salt, a substance that our bodies need in order to function and which can, again, be hard to find in nature. When you have a situation in which ingredients that carry built-in cravings suddenly become ubiquitous, you have a recipe for our current food-related obesity crisis.
Habit and craving can thus explain our attraction to sweets; we don’t have to drag in addiction. You don’t have the physical withdrawal symptoms when you go off sugar (and refined carbs—which act just like sugar in your body) that you have when you go off, say, cocaine. But wait a minute! you may say. What about the dreaded “keto flu,” the nausea, lightheadedness, fatigue, etc., that many people experience when they start going keto? Isn’t that withdrawal? I would say no. Instead, your body is adjusting to having to burn ketones instead of glucose as it uses up all of its stores. Remember, this ketone burning is the whole point of the ketogenic diet because it’s supposed to get your body to start using up your fat stores. But if you’re eating enough fat to fuel your body adequately then you won’t start burning your own fat stores and so won’t lose any weight. Re-read yesterday’s post, though, and you’ll see how hard it is to get enough calories per day from an 80% fat diet. Without necessarily realizing what you’re doing, you’ll tend to end up cutting calories. If you’re really in ketosis or even close to it you’ll start seeing some fat loss. After all, your poor body is being starved of its preferred fuel, and it has to run on something.
With, I hope, a clearer idea of the drives that play a part in our eating habits, let me now go back and repeat one sentence from yesterday’s Addicted2Decorating quotation:
Low carb eating has made sense to us for years now, but for two carb/sugar addicts, it can be a challenge to get over the emotional hurdle and get started on low carb.
I’ve dealt with the “addict” term, so now let me turn to a couple of other very interesting ideas. First, there’s an acknowledgment that for this couple a logical appeal about how low-carb eating makes sense doesn’t seem to do the job, as “it can be a challenge to get over the emotional hurdle.” What is this “hurdle”? Speaking in general terms, without claiming to have any great psychological insight into these two people, I’d say that it would consist of several factors:
familiarity
comfort
associations
ease
influence
These factors overlap somewhat but are distinct. You are used to eating a certain way, so it’s familiar, and you see that warm chocolate-chip cookie as “comfort food” (a very misleading term!), and that cookie also has associations that draw you into eating it, as your mother may have used the same recipe. And it’s easy to do what you’ve always done. Plus, what if your spouse or parents or kids don’t want to go along with your new eating plan? It’s hard to go against others’ influence. Others can even actively try to sabotage your efforts; a friend of mine complained that when she tried to adopt a more healthy diet her husband brought home donuts. We’ve all heard stories like that, haven’t we?
That’s all for today.