Emotional eating and food addictions can combine with cortisol creating a double whammy for rapid weight gain under times of high stress.
The stress hormone cortisol may reduce basal metabolic rate over time and the increased calories from emotional eating combine to exacerbate the problem.
Sometimes hunger isn’t the trigger for eating. Ask yourself the following questions:
- What do you crave?
- Why do you eat?
- What is your vulnerable time for snacking or overeating?
The overwhelming urge to continue to eat high sugar foods or dairy based food groups can stem from a newly researched arena of nutrition. The identification of morphine receptors in the human brain led scientists to the discovery that some people convert wheat based foods into a morphine like substance called, appropriately, gliadomorphine. Others will do the same with dairy based foods, converting them into their own feel-good hormone called beta casein morphine. If left undetected this can create an ongoing unstoppable urge for more of the culprit food as these people feed their habit.
Chocoholics and ice cream lovers, bread and biscuit addicts need to take special note. Once identified there may be a short period of withdrawal symptoms while these individuals wean themselves off their ‘fix’.
Our practitioners can support those people, who will have a larger than average detox in the first 3 to5 days of our weight loss program as they are weaned of their foods of addiction. In the same way as morphine can create daily fatigue once free of the culprit foods, these people can experience markedly improved levels of energy.
