Ep 61: How I Did It Part 3: Over Desire
03/29/22 | 19:35 | Episode 61
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This is part three of a four part series of how I lost 30 lbs and kept it off for nearly five years now.
Today on the podcast we are talking about the third problem that needed to be solved in order for me to lose weight, without dieting, for good and that is the problem of Over Desire.
I define over desire as either experiencing strong cravings for certain foods and/or constantly thinking– or obsessing, really– about food. When we experience these strong cravings– for me it used to be for ice cream, or nachos, or corn tortilla quesadillas– not just one, btw– or wine– we feel like these foods have power over us. We feel powerless to resist. It’s the feeling of the brownies calling to you from the kitchen, or your kids french fries taunting you from his plate. You think of nothing else while your choking down your salad except for how badly you want to eat his fries and how you “shouldn’t”. THAT is overdesire. It is the miserable preoccupation with so-called tempting, forbidden foods.
Here’s how we typically try to solve the problem of over desire: we try to use willpower, discipline, and resistance to conquer it.
We wake up every day and put on a suit of armor, ready to head into battle with sinful sugary treats, wicked buttery carbs, and tantalizing bottles of wine.
Guess what, I don’t need to tell you this but I’m gonna– war is exhausting. Battle is depleting. And no one can keep it up for a lifetime.
Because when you’re battling such a powerful desire, you’re destined to lose due to exhaustion.
And I have good news for you– you don’t need it. It doesn’t work anyway! But you really don’t need it.
There is a reason you’re experiencing over desire– and no, it’s not because you're inherently flawed or there is something wrong with you.
When we eat any food, we get a neurological response in our brain in the form of a dopamine.
Dopamine is a feel-good neurotransmitter released in your brain to signal that whatever you just did was good! This is our body’s way of keeping us alive.
When we eat highly processed foods such as mass-produced breads, cookies, chips, cakes, ice cream, etc. our brains release higher levels of dopamine than if we eat, say, a salad.
So having a strong dopamine response will keep you CRAVING that food.
And highly processed foods will give you a strong dopamine response.
That means when you eat highly processed foods you’ll get a big dopamine hit, and when you get a big dopamine spike, you’ll desire that food even more.
It’s a vicious cycle.
The more I ate it, the more I wanted it.
AND, the inverse is true: the less I ate it, the less I wanted it.
Understanding how our over desire is driving the perpetual, miserable cycle of overeating foods that sabotage our goals was a massive step in changing my habits with food– but without willpower.
I learned that the less I ate these foods, the less I wanted them and therefore my desire decreased to minimal, manageable levels. Once you decrease your desire you can relax and feel freedom around food.
In my 90 Days to Food Freedom program I take my clients step by step through the process of dismantling their over desire and what they are constantly mind-blown just like I was that this is even a thing… that this is even possible.
But it is. It was possible for me and it’s possible for you.
If you want to learn more head over to liapinelli.com and book a call with me to learn more about the 90 Days to Food Freedom program.
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Transcript
This is part three of a four part series of how I lost 30 lbs and kept it off for nearly five years now.
The first episode of this series, Episode 59, was all about how I learned to awaken, reactivate, and recalibrate my natural hunger and satiety signals and then I learned how to use those signals to eat only when I was hungry and stop when I was not.
The second episode in the series, Episode 60, addressed the problem of Over Hunger which I’d suffered from for decades. I was always the girl with the big appetite and could eat a lot more than other people, often never really feeling satisfied. I learned how WHAT your eating can actually be the driver for a high hunger drive.
Back then I had two modes: starved or stuffed. It felt like there was no in between until I figured out what I was eating that was actually making me hungrier in the long run and WOW– what a game changer. When women come to my 90 Days to Food Freedom program this is one of the first skills I teach them: how to figure out which foods are biochemically triggering their hunger and how to shift that so they can start feeling hungry LESS often and satiated more quickly.
Today on the podcast we are talking about the third problem that needed to be solved in order for me to lose weight, without dieting, for good and that is the problem of Over Desire.
I define over desire as either experiencing strong cravings for certain foods and/or constantly thinking– or obsessing, really– about food. When we experience these strong cravings– for me it used to be for ice cream, or nachos, or corn tortilla quesadillas– not just one, btw– or wine– we feel like these foods have power over us. We feel powerless to resist. It’s the feeling of the brownies calling to you from the kitchen, or your kids french fries taunting you from his plate. You think of nothing else while your choking down your salad except for how badly you want to eat his fries and how you “shouldn’t”. THAT is overdesire. It is the miserable preoccupation with so-called tempting, forbidden foods.
If you’ve ever obsessed about a plate of brownies in your kitchen, tried for hours to distract yourself from them, only to give in and eat three (or the whole plate!) and then use all of your might to throw them in the trash as a last ditch effort to STOP eating them– only to then eat them out of the trash later– you’ve experienced over desire.
And you don’t have to have eaten out of the trash to have experienced it, btw. If you’ve experienced any of that– obsessive thinking being the main thing– then you’ve experienced over desire.
Notice, we don’’ all experience this. This is not a problem for everyone– like my dad, for example. He enjoys food– good wine, pasta, etc. but he’s never, ever been “called” to it in an obsessive way. He’s never once eaten fries off of any of his kids’ or grandkids plate. He can take it or leave it. He doesn’t need my 90 Days to Food Freedom program.
I, on the other hand, used to live under the tyranny of desire. I craved hard and thought about food constantly– what I should and shouldn’t eat, constantly battling myself to be good but then giving in when it felt too hard.
Now, you might not experience desire on that level, but if you struggle to stop eating foods that you know are sabotaging your goals, you are experiencing over desire.
Here’s how we typically try to solve the problem of over desire: we try to use willpower, discipline, and resistance to conquer it.
We wake up every day and put on a suit of armor, ready to head into battle with sinful sugary treats, wicked buttery carbs, and tantalizing bottles of wine.
Guess what, I don’t need to tell you this but I’m gonna– war is exhausting. Battle is depleting. And no one can keep it up for a lifetime.
That is why you have good days, and then inevitably fall off the wagon.
Because when you’re battling such a powerful desire, you’re destined to lose due to exhaustion.
This is why willpower doesn’t work.
Discipline doesn’t work.
Resistance doesn’t work.
Because it’s f*cking exhausting.
And I have good news for you– you don’t need it. It doesn’t work anyway! But you really don’t need it.
There is a reason you’re experiencing over desire– and no, it’s not because your inherently flawed or there is something wrong with you.
It has nothing to do with a lack of self-control or willpower, and has everything to do with neurology and having a normal, human brain.
When we eat any food, we get a neurological response in our brain in the form of a dopamine.
Dopamine is a feel-good neurotransmitter released in your brain to signal that whatever you just did was good! It gets released when we eat (food is good!), when we have sex (reproduction is good!), and when we do anything that essentially helps us thrive and stay alive. Our brains release this reward hormone so that we will keep doing it again– just likePavlov’s dogs– we repeat whatever gets rewarded. This is our body’s way of keeping us alive.
When we eat highly processed foods such as mass-produced breads, cookies, chips, cakes, ice cream, etc. our brains release higher levels of dopamine than if we eat, say, a salad.
Why? Because processed foods are essentially concentrated foods. We’ve taken the wheat plant or the sugar cane and pulverized it into a powder that is then concentrated and consumed.
A concentrated food, when ingested, results in a concentrated dopamine release in your brain. Your brain is like “Woo hoo!!! That was great!! Give me more!!”
This response makes us normal, and makes us human. But if you go back to Episode #59 where I talk about how, for those of us who have done a bajillion diets in our lifetime, we’ve become hormonally dysregulated and now most likely suffer from metabolic dysfunction– this kind of jacked up hormonal response makes sense! Our brains have been trained over and over to not trust us, that soon we will be restricting and dieting again so it wants to consume as much of the good stuff as possible NOW while she’s on a binge because it knows that famine is on the horizon.
This is how our bodies are designed. And this is one of the reasons why not all of us suffer from this problem– because not all of us have yo-yo dieted for decades… like my dad.
But you don’t have to have yo-yo dieted to find highly processed foods irresistible– just look at any kid who prefers a McDonald’s Happy Meal over homemade chicken and veggies.
Now, there are a LOT of reasons this occurs, such as the problematic socialization of girls and women, and the big business interests of our food production companies here in the US– which is beyond the scope of this episode but the most important thing to note here is that none of these reasons end with YOU. None of this is your fault.
So having a strong dopamine response will keep you CRAVING that food.
And highly processed foods will give you a strong dopamine response.
That means when you eat highly processed foods you’ll get a big dopamine hit, and when you get a big dopamine spike, you’ll desire that food even more.
In fact, dopamine has even been coined the “craving” hormone because it keeps us jonesing for more.
Tying this into our episode last week on Over Hunger, Insulin increases hunger + dopamine increases desire, which in turn will invariably increase consumption. And, frustratingly, increased consumption perpetuates desire.
It’s a vicious cycle.
You’ve likely experienced this with sugar.
The more we eat it, the more we want it.
The more I ate it, the more I wanted it.
AND, the inverse is true: the less I ate it, the less I wanted it. (Just like with sugar)
Understanding how our over desire is driving the perpetual, miserable cycle of overeating foods that sabotage our goals was a massive step in changing my habits with food– but without willpower.
I learned that the less I ate these foods, the less I wanted them and therefore my desire decreased to minimal, manageable levels.
And when your desire is low, you don’t have to fight. You can put down your sword, take off your armor, and relax! You can relax with the plate of brownies, or the pitcher of margaritas– because they become no big deal.
You’ve dismantled their power– because they had no real power to begin with!
For example, if you aren’t a smoker and I put a pack of cigarettes on the table in front of you– would you have a strong desire to smoke them? Of course you wouldn’t. Cigarettes have no appeal to non-smokers. Would you have to use willpower to resist smoking? Not at all.
It can be the same with food. Once you decrease your desire you can relax and feel freedom around food.
Note that pleasure and desire are two different things! You can still enjoy a brownie without feeling obsessed with it. In fact, you’ll enjoy it more.
In my 90 Days to Food Freedom program I take my clients step by step through the process of dismantling their over desire and what they are constantly mind-blown just like I was that this is even a thing… that this is even possible.
But it is. It was possible for me and it’s possible for you.
If you want to learn more head over to liapinelli.com and book a call with me to learn more about the 90 Days to Food Freedom program.
Next week on the podcast will be the last episode in the How I Did It series where we will talk about how I learned to stop emotional OE.
