You on a diet - Chapter 8

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FACTOID When the level of serotonin in our brain falls, your body senses starvation, and to protect itself, starts craving carbs the way twelve-year- olds crave Duff sightings. Serotonin levels plummet after you go too long without eating, and that prompts your bodily machine to fill itself with foods. Some have tried to keep their serotonin level up by supplementation with 5-HTP, the breakdown product of tryptophan that converts to and stimulates serotonin. In a six-week study, a group of dieters using 5-HTP lost an average of twelve pounds, while a control group lost an average of four. Although one side effect of the supplement is nausea, about 90 percent of women taking 300 milligrams of 5-HTP reported satiety while on the diet. A Game of Emotions. Serotonin bounces around your brain, stimulating your pleasure hot spots and hitting

your satiety bumpers. But when your emotional and feeding flippers fail to keep the ball in play, your instinctual desire to eat (especially carbohydrates) returns. Mood Foods Recent research shows what many of us knew all along: Our moods dictate what we eat. Researchers studied the diets of people to show how personality and foods collide-how our moods may steer us to certain foods, on the basis of their physical characteristics. The study theorized that many moods send specific signals; for example, stressed adrenal glands could be sending salt-craving signals. So what does your favorite turn-to food say about your? If You Reach For... You May Be

Feeling... Tough foods, like meat, or hard and crunchy foods Angry Sugars Depressed Soft and sweet foods, like ice cream Anxious Salty

foods Stressed Bulky, fill-you-up foods Lonely, Like crackers and pasta sexually frustrated Anything and

everything Jealous Scales of Injustice Brain hormones that control emotions also influence appetite. Not having enough of each pulls the scale toward more NPY-and more appetite. YOU TIPS! Work Foods in Your Favor. Foods all have different effects on your stomach, your blood, and your brain. These are some of the nutrients that may influence your hunger and the brain chemicals that affect it: Turkey contains

tryptophan, which increases serotonin to improve your mood and combat depression, and help you resist cravings for simple carbs. Omega-3 fatty acids, which are found in fish, have long been known as brain boosters and cholesterol clearers, but they've also been shown convincingly to help with depression in pregnant women. Depression, as we'll explain in the next chapter, contributes to hedonistic and emotional eating. Since many of us have low omega-3 intake, it might explain some other instances of depression as well. Savor the Flavor. If you're going to eat something that's bad for you, enjoy it, savor it, roll it around your mouth. We suggest taking a piece of dark 70 percent cocoa chocolate and meditating-as a healthy stress reliever and as way to reward yourself with something sweet. We're trying to find small ways to make you feel good and increase serotonin, so you don't plummet and scavenge for

anything you can find. It's OK to eat bad foods-every once in a while. It's not the first time piece that's going to Shamu you; it's scarfing down the whole bag that will. Go to Sleep. Getting enough sleep keeps you thin. YOU-reka! That's because when your body doesn't get the seven to eight hours of sleep it needs every night to get rejuvenated, n it need to find ways to compensate for neurons not secreting the normal amounts of serotonin or dopamine. The way it typically does that is by craving sugary foods that will give you an immediate release of serotonin and and dopamine. The lack of sleep throws off your entire system increasing you levels of NPY,which increase your appetite. Lack of sleep can become an even bigger factor as you age. When you get older, the pineal gland in your brain produces less of the sleep hormone melatonin, resulting in a

craving for carbohydrates.