Is it possible to dismantle your eating issues without living in misery-fuelled deprivation for the rest of your life? YES – but to achieve this, you need to understand the difference between real and fake pleasure. *Stupid Idea of The Week*

From the annals of the history of diet literature comes this episode’s mini guide on how to be miserable around food. I actually found a book advising us to make a list of foods we prefer but to avoid! There is pleasure denial screaming from this. Even though this book is 40 years old, this idea is still very prevalent today.

 

*Real VS Fake Pleasure*

Food, and sugar in particular, was for decades my main source of pleasure.

So many people think that lack of pleasure is par for the course with health goals. Why is this? Instant gratification seems to be the only source of pleasure for many people, and then they try to claw back their willpower using calorie counting.

So what can we do instead?

We need to understand that our brains are wired to seek pleasure, and feeling naturally good is the reward for doing something good for your survival: eating, mating, exercising. our cavebrain wants to earn the feeling of pleasure - it is designed for it, because its ultimate goal of pleasure is to orient us to activities that promote our survival.

A really good way to navigate this inbuilt pleasure-survival mechanism is to distinguish between real and fake pleasure, which I explain in this episode, and the one simple question you can ask to identify if it is real or fake pleasure (yes, honestly!)

RESOURCES

Get your free Hidden Sugars Checklist to print off at

http://www.theshiftinside.com/hidden/

 

How Sugar Hijacks Your Brain - episode #4:

http://www.theshiftinside.com/audio-how-sugar-hijacks-your-brain/

 

Ask a question at:

http://www.theshiftinside.com/podcast/

Get your free audiobook at:

http://www.audibletrial.com/EatingCoach

Sound effects by Zapsplat

Produced by Beth McGowan