Power of the Brain Over the Body When Dieting

In another article that shows the power of the brain over the body Your Own Brain Thwarts Diet With ‘Feed Me’ Signals

The article states:

When dieters starve themselves of calories, they starve their brain cells as well. New research finds that these hungry brain cells then release “feed me” signals, which drive hunger, slow metabolism and may cause diets to fail.

Eating too few calories is just as bad as eating too many. The body has many evolutionary starvation prevention mechanisms in place, and it is preprogrammed for survival.

The starvation mechanism and feelings of hungerproduced by these neurons is signaled through a process called autophagy (which literally means “self-eating”) in which the cell breaks down its used parts. It does this to recycle the used parts, but also to harvest energy.

Most brain cells keep their autophagy at a steady level and don’t respond to starvation. These appetite-sensing neurons are different, the researchers found, and are now the only known brain cells to ramp up autophagy in times of starvation.

This increased breakdown increases cellular levels of compounds called free fatty acids. Higher levels of fatty acids signal these special brain cells to release the appetite-inducing protein, which is called agouti-related peptide (AgRP).

“These neurons sense nutrients in the body and tell the body it’s time to eat, time to stop eating,” Singh told LiveScience. “When you are hungry, there is this process in the brain that gets upregulated and that makes you eat.”

The brain rules the body. The body is there to support the brain. When the brain tells you it’s time to eat, it stops performing many other higher level thinking tasks and becomes primitive in nature. You need food, and your brain won’t stop until you get it.

These cravings are what make dieting so hard for many people. They can be so powerful that they end up grabbing the wrong types of food and ruining their diet.

The key is to eat frequently, eat enough calories but not too many, and to eat the right foods so that they are digested slow enough so that the body and the brain get a steady supply of nutrients.

Put the hunger signals at bay, and lose fat another day.