Prior to my lifestyle change, I would find myself demolishing a pack of 4 chocolate muffins from the CO-OP and not stopping until that whole box was demolished. The reasoning behind this is related to neuroscience. Your brains main source of energy is glucose (form of sugar) and the networks in your brain responsible for pleasure and reward are sensitive to sugar.
Pleasure or a reward motivates by either a food product, alcohol or tobacco for example is an addiction caused by neuroscience, which also causes addiction. These feelings then lead to behaviours such as looking for that particular food source.
Sugar Facts
- Sugar is a short carbohydrate (monosaccharides).
- Glucose and Fructose are monosaccharides.
- Sucrose (table sugar) is a combination of 1 glucose molecule and 1 fructose molecule.
- Glycogen is a long carbohydrate chain made up of 30,000 units of glucose.
Long Carbohydrates are unrefined, the body cannot burn them straight away and hast to break them into smaller components. This is why your brain would rather use continuous glucose delivered via the blood vessels than have large quantities of glycogen stored (there is also not enough room in the brain to store glycogen). This explains why the brain has adapted to associate sugar as a reward making us crave apples, brownies, sweets, biscuits etc.
As I state to all my clients, when you crave something bad, think logically. Have you not ate properly throughout the day e.g. good quality carb sources that has led to a spike in your insulin levels thus craving sweet food. Is it all in your head? Do you really need it or is your brain telling you would need it? Nine times out of 10 when I get a sugar craving its all in my head and normally because I am bored and sitting around not doing anything instead of keeping busy.
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