Attack of the Snack!

“People don’t get fat from overeating.”  This bold statement by Robert Cywes, MD, PhD snaps me out of the lull of my morning commute.  “People get fat,” he goes on to say, “because they are addicted to a drug called carbohydrates.”  

In the course of three episodes of the Diet & Health Today podcast, author and researcher Zoë Harcombe, Ph.D., interviews Cywes on his great success in getting patients thin and healthy.  

Cywes is a bariatric surgeon, so for his patients, losing weight is the easy part.  Bariatric surgery has a very high success rate in the short term.  The problem is, the long-term results are not so hot.  Many people regain the weight after a few years, as they slip right back into old habits.  Cywes’s solution: follow up the surgery with ongoing support in what he calls “AA for fat people.”  (As a former obese person himself, he feels comfortable using the very un-PC term “fat person.”)

Cywes explains that food gives us two things: nutrition (that is, fuel for the body) and endorphins (that is, feel-good chemicals in the brain).  Carbohydrate-rich foods like ice cream, potato chips are not very good at the former, but they’re especially good at the latter.  

This is why, when we feel that snack attack coming on, we’re most likely to reach for something carby.  Cywes believes that “a snack is always an emotional event,” prompted not by the body’s nutritional needs, but the brain’s need for a break from stress or a change in mood.  Unfortunately, carbs are also uniquely good at causing us problems, like weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and so on. 

Cywes’s follow-up program, then, is focused on teaching people to deal with their stress and emotions through endorphin-releasing activities, like playing music, meditating or exercising, rather than with endorphin-releasing substances, like a pint of Ben & Jerry’s or a glass of wine.  

The key word, he says, is effort.  Doing something that requires effort, that we can get lost in for a while, and that will produce a feeling of accomplishment gives the mind some space to process the stress and provides the endorphins you need to feel better.  Substances, by contrast, will give a quick shortcut to the endorphins, but will only mask those bad feelings, so that they pop up again later on.  

The interview gets deep, into things like childhood experience and addictive tendencies, and it’s definitely worth a listen if you’re interested in either weight loss or mental health.  It’s made me reconsider many of my habits, from the parade of hot K-cups that gets me through my morning, to the after-dinner nibbles in front of the TV.  Are all those habits merely little crutches to get me through my day? That mid-afternoon handful of peanuts — am I really hungry, or just looking to delay a difficult work decision?  Would a walk around the block be a better way of processing the situation? 

Maybe losing weight is not so much “mind over matter,” but “mind over mind.”  My plan for the next few weeks is to try to find new ways of implementing this advice in my life — paying attention to the cravings that pop up, and finding other ways to work out the underlying stress.  I’ll keep you posted!

Note: The ramblings published on this blog are the opinions of the author alone and shared for entertainment purposes only.  The author is an English major with no medical or scientific background; thus, his words should never be taken as medical advice.  Consult with your doctor or medical professional before undertaking any diet or exercise program.