Finding our Motivation

What motivates you?   I frequently think of something Aunt Ann once said to me about dieting.  She said that when she can't have what she wants she feels like she is being punished.  It probably won't shock anybody to hear this about me, but I find my motivation mostly by beating up on myself.  So when I eat something that I shouldn't or make a mistake I spend time talking about it, and thinking about it and considering how I want to modify my behavior in the future.  It does not always work because if it did, then I would have rock hard abs, and, I don't.

Not sure if all of you know this or not, but when we food that we enjoy we receive a reward from our body in the form of a chemical in the brain known as Dopamine.  You see, Dopamine is what our body uses to get us to do things that are good for us.  We get a dopamine rush when we exercise, we get another when eat high energy density foods like fat, protein and when we eat easy energy foods like candy.  We get a dopamine rush when have sex.  You see, we need to have sex to procreate, so our body makes the "reward" for sex very high.  You get anywhere between 100 and 200 dopamine units from having sex.  (side note, you get about 140 from booze, 350 from cocaine and 1250 from Crystal Meth)  

So - why did I just make you so bored with that.  You see, our little brain actually makes decisions for us - not that LITTLE brain, our animal brain.  Our cerebral cortex is the complex outer part of the brain, our evolved brain that understand reasoning and logic, but guess what, that brain doesn't actually make decisions.  Our animal brain Cerebellum gets that job.  This is why decisions are emotional and not logical.  How many times have you made an emotional decision and then thought a lot about it in order to make the logic fit your decisions?  In fact, nobody ever makes a decision based on logic - those connections don't exist!

What does this have to do with eating anyway?  Well, since powerful chemical forces are at work here, the challenge you have is that when you are craving food that is actually your BRAIN wanting the associated dopamine rush you get from eating.  The SAME mechanism that makes Crystal Meth addicts do so much of the drug that they destroy their faces and bodies is what drives you to the Ben and Jerry's ice-cream!

The smart people that design processed foods know this and exploit it.  When we had to hunt for food, we got a better reward for meat than we did for vegetables.  The protein is much higher energy density, and so is the fat, and because it is so much work to get meat - because, for most of our existence we've had to hunt.  You go out and kill a deer with a sharpened stick and see exactly how much work it is.  Our brain has to reward us more for protein and fat and sugar because they represent ideal energy sources and they are SCARCE in nature.  In the modern world because we have mass produced foods, we have eliminated the dynamic where we must eat all of he sugary, fatty and salty foods we find right away.  We can have them anytime and all the time, and, because they were so scare during our evolution, we are now in a position to consume too much of them.

Modern processed foods all work so hard to find what is called the "Bliss" point, and that is specifically so that your brain provides the absolute maximum dopamine rush in response to that food and to them, the higher the better.  

So what about the carrot and the stick.  Classic dilemma, do you punish for bad behavior or reward for good and what motivates you?  I would suggest that our brain REWARDS us for the absolute worst eating habits, which means, by definition we are, in fact Aunt Ann, being punished when we eat more healthy food.  This is true because the dopamine rush for foods that don't have that amazing taste, are, predictably non-existent.  

My plan continues to be to turn this around.  I have to find a way to PUNISH (stick) myself when I eat food that my brain wants to reward me for and I have to find a way to REWARD (carrot) myself when I eat food that is good for me.

The bottom line, is that your animal brain is working against you, and you make decisions based on emotion,  You have to find the emotion of the carrot or the stick you want to use when faced, in the moment of truth when making decisions about what and how much you eat.  If you need to punish yourself with your cerebral cortex and the logic of knowing that bad food is killing you, use that emotion, embrace it.  I give you permission to be angry at yourself, to feel guilt and shame - because decisions are made with emotions, and if try just to use logic, you'll make the wrong decision.  if the carrot works better for you, then think of the positive benefits of making a good food decision.  You need your little emotional red devil and white angel to duke it out in your cerebellum - even if your cerebral cortex has to throw a metal chair into the ring - so that your white food angel can put the red devil in their place for good.