Junk Food Runaway

[vakkotaur]

I've been more careful about what I eat and what amounts I eat in the last few months. I've noticed how some things are satisfying and some only make me want to have more even if I shouldn't. This afternoon I did a bit of a test of that.

What I used: Water, a cameo apple, Keebler® frosted shortbread animal cookies.

What I did: I drank a glass of water and then ate two of the animal cookies, fairly slowly. I intended to enjoy them and not wolf them down. Checking my reactions, I felt a desire for more cookies even though I had eaten some and had the glass of water so I wasn't hungry. It was a very strong "I could eat something" signal and the rest of the signal was "MORE COOKIES!"

After a minute or two of that distraction, I then ate the cameo apple. After that, I didn't have the "I could eat something" feeling and the "MORE COOKIES!" signal was gone.

Next I did something risky: I ate two more of the cookies. The "I could eat something" signal returned. The "MORE COOKIES!" signal returned with it. Even though I had drank a full glass of water and eaten an apple, I had this feeling of wanting to eat something. It was not hunger. Any real hunger I had was taken care of before those last two cookies.

A bit of patience, getting the cookies out of sight, and more water helps to reduce those undesired signals.

It was interesting to watch this and try to watch with some detachment. I don't know what the key to the signals happens to be. Was it the sugar? The fat? The relative speed of ingestion? The combination? That there was some residual flavor in my mouth? I mention speed of ingestion as while I've noticed this effect with other things, it seems not to be present or not very strongly present when I let a hard candy dissolve.

This was a good demonstration, if only to myself, of the different reactions to good food (the apple) and junk food (the cookies). The apple was satisfying and I didn't really want to eat anything more after that. I only ate the additional cookies to see what would happen, and when I did I then wanted more. It's easy to see how that could lead to a runaway condition where one keeps eating even when there is no reason to. Eating stops not when one has had enough, but when the supply runs out, or when it gets somewhat painful to eat any more - the stuffed feeling.

Comments

[ginafae.livejournal.com]

I saw on Oprah (yea I know) Dr. Oz talking about the fact that apparantly High Fructose Corn Syrup blocks a certain chemical (don't remember the name) which is the chemical that tells our brain that we are full. Due to that effect, if you are drinking a soda (for instance) with a meal, you will automatically eat at least 100 calories more than you would have without it.

Interesting... perhaps explains some of the tale?

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

Probably either leptin or ghrelin. Increased leptin levels, along with increased insulin levels, give a feeling of fullness. Increased levels of ghrelin give a feeling of hunger. Unfortunately it's not as simple a matter as it might seem to tweak the levels of the hormones to get a desired result.

[aedifica]

One of the things they've talked about in my Weight Watchers meetings is the concept of a "trigger food". Not all people have the same trigger foods, but there are some common ones--like nuts, and cookies. (One of mine is chips.) You may just have discovered one of yours.

[vakkotaur.livejournal.com]

I think I'm more inclined to agree with kiwihunter8's assessment below. It's not just one junk food or one kind of junk food. I've noticed a similar reaction to almost anything with more calories than real nutrition. I'd say almost the whole class of "junk food" seems to be a trigger. I think the same seems to happen with deep-fried items, so the fat content likely is a significant part of things. The hard candies probably aren't as much of a trigger due to not having fat and the slower ingestion time as I let them dissolve rather than crunch and munch them.

[kiwihunter8.livejournal.com]

You probably already know, but humans are hard-wired to respond to high concentrations of sugar and of fat.

Out in 'the wild' this wouldn't be a problem, it would just keep people alive. The worst sugar you could get was fruit (or an occasional beehive raid) and the worst fat, probably off of animals. But even then, the fat composition of wild animals is different than that of our feedlot ones (more nutritious). And, for hunter gatherers, meat was physical work to get.