by Elena Meli
The brain remains in obese mode and when we are on a diet the hormones that regulate hunger receive more powerful signals: for this reason, once the restrictions are over, we eat more and regain weight
The data comes from an animal study, but it is likely that they can explain at least in part the feared yo-yo effect after diets: su Cell Metabolism a group of researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Metabolism Research has shown that in the brains of mice put on a diet, the brain circuits change, particularly in an area of the hippocampus that controls hunger.
The brain drives the sense of hunger
With the diet, the signals arriving at these neurons become stronger; thus, when you go back to eating normally, the sense of hunger returns more powerful than ever and pushes you to eat more, quickly recovering the lost weight. It’s a neuronal plasticity and a change in nerve signals that lead to prolonged and increased hunger, the authors say. The brain greatly influences the chances of success of a diet and explains, for example, why almost everyone is persuaded to try drastic regimens.
Diet plans that are not flexible or varied, regardless of the often negative effect on the body, are in fact a stress reliever for the brain, which has to make numerous decisions at any moment: eliminating the possibility of choice at the root, following crash diets seems easy. Only so at the beginning, because then the forbidden foods become more and more gluttonous and irresistible just thinking about them; especially then the strict rules, difficult to respect, lead to a sense of failure if you give in to temptation or, on the contrary, to develop an obsession with avoiding foods that are not allowed at all costs.
Emotional eating
If we fail to manage and channel the inevitable psychological pressure from dieting, these mechanisms lead to an increase in appetite which, however, if we are on a strict diet, we do everything to ignore or suppress. As a result, the risk of not being able to respond well to the stimulus of hunger rises and becoming unable to listen to the signals of the body: this increases the probability of indulging in the so-called emotional eating, with which an emotional need is satisfied rather than a real need to eat. food, and being more vulnerable to environmental stimuli that lead to eating more than the body asks for.
With strict diets, then, the danger of compulsive binge eating is also higher: in those on a strict diet, for example, the reward areas of the brain light up much more than normal when faced with junk food. All these reasons, very cerebral, favor the yo-yo effect and the recovery of the lost kilos.
Crash diets? The brain knows they don’t last
Moreover, the tendency to always postpone the beginning of the diet is also entirely in the mind, because the brain prefers a small and immediate reward to a much greater but distant advantage, which also requires commitment: a tasty food now appears more desirable than a cholesterol value normal in six months. In addition, we always tend to put off anything that exposes us to the risk of failure or seems too difficult, such as a diet; not to mention that many do not have clear rules to follow or are not really motivated.
To combat the tendency to procrastinate, it is necessary to establish
realistic, measurable goals and achievable, taking one small step at a time and thus avoiding the fear response from turning on in the brain, which is inevitable when you feel you can’t do it, which then blocks any initiative. Often it’s enough to really start, because what seems impossible can turn out to be less stressful and more feasible if you just start: taking action makes you feel more optimistic and in control of yourself, increasing your chances of successfully following a diet.
July 4, 2023 (change July 4, 2023 | 08:37)
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