I don’t think by me saying SUGAR is addictive is news to you, right?!!   

Now here is what you might learn or have a  freshly reminder.

Sugar is the most  popular ingredient added to processed food. It is found in pretty much everything: cakes, cookies, candy, ketchup, crackers, bread, soups, cereals, sauces, dressings, pop, alcohol  

and on…

So here is how the sugar cycle function:

• Step 1: You eat sugar. Your body likes it because it has addictive properties.
• Step 2: Your blood sugar levels spike. Dopamine is released in the brain (feeling of pleasure, pleasure is good, so we are already becoming addicted) and insulin is secreted to decrease sugar level. 
• Step 3: High insulin levels cause fat storage and your body craves the lost “sugar high”.
• Step 4: Low blood sugar causes increased appetite and cravings. And the dopamine system is ON. 

The process is repeated.

This is why diets don’t work, this is why we keep falling into that cycle and get into that yo-yo dieting. Because we stop for a while, we feel better, we lose the weight and when satisfied with our weight loss we go back to our “old ways” and we are back to square one. 

It takes 3 weeks to create an addiction by stimulating that system chronically (again, again and again…) = nucleus accumbens 

Now what happens is that the receptors for the dopamine signal is down regulated. They are fewer of them, so when eating something that we know we are gonna get that feeling of pleasure (ice cream, cakes, pizza, hamburger, fries…) we unfortunately don’t get that feeling anymore so we need to eat more to try to get that dopamine. That phenomenon is called TOLERANCE. (I like to call it the binge eating phenomenon) 

So not only sugar is addictive but ultra processed foods are too!!

Would you say you are in that cycle, or you’ve been there before?!

Have you fell into that yo-yo dieting?!

I’ve done the talking so now your turn.

Share if you can relate to what I said, ask any questions and if you have. 

Let’s use each other’s story to inspire, understand and grow from it.