Читать книгу Only Fat People Skip Breakfast: The Refreshingly Different Diet Book - Lee Janogly - Страница 12

Eating is a basic instinct. Scientists use mice and rats for experiments because they want to measure the results they get from basic instinct, not carefully thought-out decision-making. They program the rodents to understand that if they do what the researcher wants they will be rewarded with food. But to condition these rodents, scientists manufacture a situation where the rodents are really hungry so the food can be used as a reward. People often do the same thing to themselves to reward themselves with food. They wait until they are tired, hungry, depressed, weak, sleepy or anxious before allowing themselves to eat, then they reward themselves with fatty, sugary food.

In most aspects of your life you plan in advance: you wouldn’t wait until your car was completely empty before filling it with petrol. When it comes to eating, however, many of us don’t bother planning ahead. Eating can easily become something we do to respond to the moment.

Your brain naturally craves foods to meet specific needs, such as to make hormones and neurotransmitters, replace spent fuel stores or rebuild damaged muscles. By the time you crave nutrients to meet those needs, you have already suffered a deficiency. Your body signals you with urgent warnings that force you to over-correct, which means overeat. So by neglecting to feed your brain and body with what it needs before it starts a craving, you set yourself up to eat too much.