Are You Caught Up In A Cycle Of Emotional Eating?

We all have one. At least one. A little darling. A best friend. A helper, a life raft. An entrenched habit that's so comfortable, it feels like a hug or an island of calm. A fix.
A fix starts simply enough. You think about doing something that you like to do—drink a mojito or check your iPhone—and that thought lights up an entire dopamine-driven reward pathway in your brain. You try, but you just can't get that urge out of your head. You give in. And then, as soon as you satisfy the raging hunger, bingo: You feel another rush. Your brain says, "Yeah! This is amazing. I want more." You need your fix.
This Is Your Brain On Food
Most of the time, this neurological process is a good thing. This same reward system drives us to learn, to create, to innovate, to pursue our goals. But as a medical doctor specializing in metabolism and weight management, I've seen firsthand how the rush of dopamine—a brain chemical that makes us feel a brief burst of pleasure and satisfaction—cuts both ways. That healthy high you get from, say, a run in the park occupies the same pathways as, and can easily become confused with, the dopamine hit from a snort of cocaine or a puff of a cigarette.

I'm seeing a growing manifestation of this double-edged sword in my own medical practice. More and more men and women are desperate to find an answer to the same questions: "Why can't I stop thinking about food? How can a cookie or plate of pasta or bag of chocolates have this kind of hold on me? I feel like a junkie!"

As I've listened to people's tortured stories of unbearable cravings, yo-yo dieting, weight obsession, and emotion-driven stress eating, I've seen a pattern emerge. The pleas for help are no longer your standard "Gosh, I'd love to drop 10 pounds before the reunion" fare. Instead, these entreaties are eerily similar to the cries for help from my patients with hard-core drug or alcohol addictions: "I need that sugar fix every afternoon, or I'll go crazy with withdrawal." "I need a dose of pizza." "Chips and dip are like crack to me—once I start, I just can't stop."
These cravings are the result of a reward system gone awry. New science shows that the mere anticipation of a food-related dopamine high will cause the brain's reward centers to light up like Times Square on New Year's Eve. It doesn't take much to trigger this cascade of brain chemicals: A casually mentioned word, a picture in a magazine or on TV, or a smell from a bakery can awaken the desperate cravings.