How much you eat isn’t a matter of willpower or lack of it. It’s an inborn, powerful biological drive to assure human survival. Trying to override the system with diet and food restriction is counterproductive because it triggers the body’s chemicals to turn on your appetite and increase hunger. Every time you under-eat or deny your body’s need for food, you actually crank into high gear a complex system of chemical reactions that tells you to eat. A vicious cycle? You bet.
That growling in your stomach really is being controlled by a complex chemical process that originates in your brain and is triggered by either sensory or mechanical origins. Once your brain thinks your body needs food it sends a wave of chemical signals that make you feel hungry.
After extensive research scientists have discovered that it is the hypothalamus part of our brain that is responsible for regulating our hunger. The hypothalamus cells send signals to other cells in our brain that begins the signals that tells you how much and what to eat. These chemical signals travel both ways so we know when to stop eating.
What starts the chemical chain? Food can be the trigger that stimulates the brain to turn the desire to eat into the actual act of eating. How a food smells, what it looks like, how you remember it tasting – in short, its sensory appeal – excites chemicals within the brain.
Besides sensory stimulation the process is also controlled at the cellular level when your body determines that it needs fuel to run and starts the chemical reaction in your brain.
When your body needs fuel special chemicals called neurotransmitters transmit signals to the neurons in your brain telling you to eat. While additional research is needed to further understand the process it is thought that one specific neurotransmitters called Neuropeptides is what controls our desire for foods that contain carbohydrates.
The current theory being proposed by scientists is that when our carbohydrate levels and blood sugar levels drop Neuropeptides are released by the hypothalamus makinf us crave sugary or starchy foods.
While we are sleeping our glycogen and blood sugar levels drop sending signals to our brains to produce more Neuropeptides. This is why cereals, fruits and breads are some of our favorite breakfast foods as they are full of complex carbohydrates.
By skipping breakfast you are setting yourself up for a carbohydrate binge by the afternoon as your Neuropeptides level increase through the day. Be aware that this is built-in to each of us and is not something that we can easily control. Some other factors that are thought to trigger the release of Neuropeptides are dieting and stress.
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