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Authors: Linda Bacon
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can’t take care of our emotions, we eat and eat and never feel satisfied. We’ll tackle these topics in this chapter.
Another part of the deal is that we’re physically hungrier due to rising setpoints, the result of changing lifestyle choices. How we live our lives and what we eat do matter. Those are weighty topics that deserve their own chapters.
What Drives Your Hunger?
Have you ever thought about why you eat? Sure, sure, part of the reason is because your stomach is growling and that steaming bowl of pasta with marinara sauce is making your mouth water.
Imagine traveling back many millions of years to pose this question to Nate the Neanderthal.
“Why eat? I eat to survive, dummy. Now pass me that bison leg and quit bothering me with such silly questions.”
Without the distractions of modern life, Nate is able to home in on the simple but profound answer to our question, an answer that often eludes us post-Neanderthals. The most basic reason we eat is to provide fuel for our bodies. Without food, obviously, we’d die.
In fact, hunger is at the foundation of our biological programming that ensures our survival as a species. Every cell in our bodies is so invested in making sure we eat and provide fuel, that not only are our bodies designed to make us feel miserable when we’re hungry (lightheaded, irritable, headachy, weak, etc.), but they are also designed to reward us when we do eat, triggering pleasure centers in our brains that make the act of eating so much more appealing than simply stuffing our mouths. This pleasure is our reward for listening to our bodies’ signals and it plays an important role in the setpoint mechanism.
If only hunger and eating remained that simple! Today, few of us view food as a means of fueling our bodies. Nor is it a source of true pleasure for many of us. In fact, the pleasure we get from eating is too often viewed as indulgent or sinful, rather than as valuable support for nourishing ourselves. We’ve learned to deny or control our hunger, rather than honor and celebrate it.
As you already know from the first chapter, denying your hunger doesn’t lead to weight loss or better health. And eating when you’re hungry won’t make you fat. In fact, the opposite is true: eating when you’re hungry helps maintain your setpoint and keep you at the weight that’s right for you, and denying your hunger leads to compensatory mechanisms that trigger fat storage and weight gain.
Yet today there’s simply too much noise around the issues of food, hunger, and eating for us to listen to our own bodies. We live in a world that’s decided to define food as “good” or “bad,” a world that encourages us to ignore our hunger and fullness signals in favor of continually seeking out that Holy Grail of thinness, or to use food to fill needs that have nothing to do with sustenance.
The Pleasure Principle
An interesting cross-cultural survey of food attitudes in the United States, France, Belgium, and Japan found that Americans associated food with pleasure the least and health the most. 24 When asked what came to mind upon hearing the words “chocolate cake,” Americans were most likely to say “guilt” while the French connected it with “celebration.” Overall, the researchers found, we derive less pleasure from eating than others.
What a shame. Even though we are biologically wired to find pleasure in food, we’ve become so obsessed with the hidden meanings of food in this country that we’ve forgotten what it is supposed to do. Nourish us. Provide pleasure. The French haven’t; nor have the Italians, the founders of the so-called “Slow Food” movement. These cultures (and many others) honor food, savor it, spend hours preparing and enjoying a meal, rather than grabbing a burger at a drive-through and scarfing it down in the car as ketchup drips onto their laps.
Another study asked 282 people from France
Another part of the deal is that we’re physically hungrier due to rising setpoints, the result of changing lifestyle choices. How we live our lives and what we eat do matter. Those are weighty topics that deserve their own chapters.
What Drives Your Hunger?
Have you ever thought about why you eat? Sure, sure, part of the reason is because your stomach is growling and that steaming bowl of pasta with marinara sauce is making your mouth water.
Imagine traveling back many millions of years to pose this question to Nate the Neanderthal.
“Why eat? I eat to survive, dummy. Now pass me that bison leg and quit bothering me with such silly questions.”
Without the distractions of modern life, Nate is able to home in on the simple but profound answer to our question, an answer that often eludes us post-Neanderthals. The most basic reason we eat is to provide fuel for our bodies. Without food, obviously, we’d die.
In fact, hunger is at the foundation of our biological programming that ensures our survival as a species. Every cell in our bodies is so invested in making sure we eat and provide fuel, that not only are our bodies designed to make us feel miserable when we’re hungry (lightheaded, irritable, headachy, weak, etc.), but they are also designed to reward us when we do eat, triggering pleasure centers in our brains that make the act of eating so much more appealing than simply stuffing our mouths. This pleasure is our reward for listening to our bodies’ signals and it plays an important role in the setpoint mechanism.
If only hunger and eating remained that simple! Today, few of us view food as a means of fueling our bodies. Nor is it a source of true pleasure for many of us. In fact, the pleasure we get from eating is too often viewed as indulgent or sinful, rather than as valuable support for nourishing ourselves. We’ve learned to deny or control our hunger, rather than honor and celebrate it.
As you already know from the first chapter, denying your hunger doesn’t lead to weight loss or better health. And eating when you’re hungry won’t make you fat. In fact, the opposite is true: eating when you’re hungry helps maintain your setpoint and keep you at the weight that’s right for you, and denying your hunger leads to compensatory mechanisms that trigger fat storage and weight gain.
Yet today there’s simply too much noise around the issues of food, hunger, and eating for us to listen to our own bodies. We live in a world that’s decided to define food as “good” or “bad,” a world that encourages us to ignore our hunger and fullness signals in favor of continually seeking out that Holy Grail of thinness, or to use food to fill needs that have nothing to do with sustenance.
The Pleasure Principle
An interesting cross-cultural survey of food attitudes in the United States, France, Belgium, and Japan found that Americans associated food with pleasure the least and health the most. 24 When asked what came to mind upon hearing the words “chocolate cake,” Americans were most likely to say “guilt” while the French connected it with “celebration.” Overall, the researchers found, we derive less pleasure from eating than others.
What a shame. Even though we are biologically wired to find pleasure in food, we’ve become so obsessed with the hidden meanings of food in this country that we’ve forgotten what it is supposed to do. Nourish us. Provide pleasure. The French haven’t; nor have the Italians, the founders of the so-called “Slow Food” movement. These cultures (and many others) honor food, savor it, spend hours preparing and enjoying a meal, rather than grabbing a burger at a drive-through and scarfing it down in the car as ketchup drips onto their laps.
Another study asked 282 people from France
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