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Rational vs Emotional Eating - It’s in Your Brain AND Hormones

Why don't people stick to diets? Do we "overeat" for emotional reasons or biological ones? This is a question that is often asked, and has been approached in many different ways. On the one hand, usually people are blamed for "going off a diet", saying that they "lack willpower" or are "compulsive eaters". On the other hand, we know that the levels of certain appetite hormones and peptides rise and fall with weight loss and regain. Are we essentially asking people to go against their biology if they are to maintain a weight loss? On a third hand, some people are able to lose large amounts of weight and keep it off for over 5 years* with diets and exercise (although even after decades of tracking people's weight loss attempts, I didn't personally know any of these people until I started meeting low-carbers). I personally experienced that what I was calling "compulsive eating" vanished after I adopted a low-carb diet. And on yet a fourth hand, I was not able to keep losing weight - after the now-proverbial "5-10% of my body weight" lost, that seemed to be it, unless I wanted to be hungry all the time. This left me merely "less obese" than I had been (but much healthier). So what is going on here? There was an intriguing clue in a recent Columbia University study reported on NPR which attempted to look at some of the many possible factors simultaneously, looking at the brain functions of people before and after weight loss, and also two of the hormones responsible for appetite (leptin and ghrelin). They noticed that after weight loss, when they showed people foods, their brains (observed with a "functional MRI scan") reacted much more emotionally to the food than they had before the weight loss, when their "rational brain" had exhibited the main response to the food. This could be a key to why people regain weight, for it is much more difficult to make a rational decision when our emotional responses are activated. But wait, there's more! Another change that happened with the weight loss was that the people had a decrease in leptin (a satiety hormone). What would happen if these relatively leptin-deprived people were given an extra shot of leptin? Well, guess what? Their brain responses reverted to the "rational" response to food! So the brain response just may be the "method" our body uses to get us to eat more. What does all this mean for us? Well, for one thing, it means "it's complicated", and it also means that at this point it's difficult to game this system, although we certainly can try (it may help to know what we are up against). Since a moderate weight loss of 5-10% does produce many health benefits, we should start there. Beyond that, I think we have to rejoice if we get farther, but not be heartbroken if we don't. I also think that this is very exciting research, and may point the way to where some future solutions lie. *I think the research is pretty clear that it remains difficult to maintain a weight loss until at least this point. Therefore, I'm relatively unimpressed with shorter-term success, although I certainly applaud people for any ...
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