Help to Stop Constant Food Cravings

Why is it so hard to stop eating the overly high-processed foods? I am talking about fast-foods, like burgers and cheese fries and chicken strips as well as refined carbohydrates such as most breads,(we love our bread products), pastries (think freshly baked cinammon rolls you can smell in the malls), sugary treats (almost everything Starbucks sells!) and chips...like nachos (excessively salty foods). To continue with Dr. David Kessler's explanations, here are some real scientific reasons for this. All these flavors hit full force. Health-sapping sugar, salt and fat, -plus additives such as hydrolyzed vegetable protein, ratchet up taste far beyond what you'd find in nature. Texture can also tantalize. Processed foods are engineered for optimal "MOUTH FEEL", whether crunchy, creamy or gooey. These fun-to-eat qualities can quickly override your better judgment. Plus.....these foods are super easy to eat! No bones, no pits, no peels, just instant gratification. Do we stand a chance? Can we fight back? I think we can.

Here is one idea to try: preparing food in advance. We live in a fast-forward world. We prepare for work. We prepare our kids for school. These are not optional....we MUST be prepared with clean presentable clothes, homework done, cell phones charged, gas in car. The list goes on. We go grocery shopping, but are we just buying more fast foods? Preparing foods in advance takes time, but the payoff can be huge. Buying fresh chicken, fish, eggs and other lean proteins and cooking them ahead of time will mean that on busy week nights there are healthy options for quick 'heat and eat' meals. Buying fresh vegetables and cutting them up ahead of time makes having salads or steamed veggies or soups quickly available. I really don't like cutting up salad ingredients, but I do like eating salad and I would rather spend the time to cut everything up at once than doing it every night before dinner. Bake a whole chicken (or two). Grill fish. Cook hard-boiled eggs. Make meatloaf. Spaghetti. Lasagne.

Good luck. I know you can do it.

Super-Stimulating Foods

How to get your brain out of the binge mode. That's my question. Dr. David Kessler, former FDA commissioner says the real problem is that certain commercially made foods-the ones with tons of added sugar, salt, and fat-are so tasty and so stimulating that they actually overwhelm the brain's circuitry. When we eat them, the brain cranks out dopamine, a neurochemical associated with a reward that drives us to eat that food again....and again....and again. Eventually, just looking at the food can trigger a dopamine release. "We get stuck in a cycle," Dr. Kessler says. "We're constantly chasing that satisfaction." When we're eating a highly processed diet we might find it tough to stop. This helps explain why, when we know that eating healthy foods are better for us, we continue eating the crap that leads to increasing obesity and the health problems associated with it. It's somewhat reassuring to know there is a physiological reason behind the sometimes unexplainable binges.

He has some suggestions to thwart the constant cravings and I'll cover those in my next blog. Stay tuned.

FDA Panel votes in favor of lowering BMI for Lap-Band surgery.....

Here is some good news (for a change!) 

To read the article from abcnews, just click on the link below.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory?id=12309257

Basically though, the article explains that the Lap-Band device from Allergan Inc. which is currently implanted in roughly 100,000 people each year (like me!)and usually helps patients lose 50 pounds or more currently under Federal Guidelines has been limited to patients who are morbidly obese. About 12 million more obese Americans could soon qualify for surgery to implant this small, flexible stomach band designed to help them lose weight by dramatically limiting their food intake. The Food and Drug Administration will make a final decision on the Lap-Band in the coming months. On Friday, a panel of FDA advisers recommended expanding use of the device to include patients who are less obese. The panel voted 8-2 (hey, who's holding out?) that the benefits of broader approval outweighed the risks.

If you are interested in checking out what your BMI is (Body Mass Index is how they decide when you qualify for Lap-Band surgery), click on the link:
http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ and then you can enter your height and weight in the online calculator. Easy!