February 20, 2017
Interview with Stephan Guyenet, PhD, author of the book The Hungry Brain
Mike Carruthers:
It’s no secret that American’s are getting heavier.
Stephan Guyenet, PhD:
If you look all the way back to the late 1800’s what you find is that only about 1 in 17 people were obese – and today that number is 38% of adults in the United States.
Stephan Guyenet, PhD, author of the book The Hungry Brain, says a lot of the problem has to do with how your brain reacts with the foods you surround yourself with.
And so if you have seductive calorie dense foods in your kitchen such as potato chips or soda, cookies hanging around where you have that visual cue or the smell cue that’s plugging into those instinctive circuits. It’s going to trigger your motivation to eat those foods. If those foods are not around and you’re not experiencing those cues it’s not going to trigger your motivation to eat them.
It seems like such simple advice but if you don’t want to eat junk don’t bring it into the house.
So for example if you walk into my kitchen the only visible food is things like fresh fruit and nuts. So you have to do a little bit of work to access that food and so that small effort barrier and the fact that it’s not overly seductive really helps me control my calorie intake in a way where matching my true needs instead of going beyond my true needs.
