Diet Myth #1: IF YOU'RE NOT LOSING WEIGHT, YOU'RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH

DIET MYTH #1: IF YOU’RE NOT LOSING WEIGHT, YOU’RE NOT TRYING HARD ENOUGH

Dieters, and even many doctors, can woefully misunderstand the concept of willpower. Many believe that the secret to success is simply buckling down and saying no to overeating by using an endless reserve of willpower. But willpower has been proven to be a limited source. You can run out of willpower every day, and you can’t renew your supply simply by deciding to do so.

Decision fatigue is a documented psychological phenomenon that refers to the deteriorating quality of decisions made after a long session of decision making. When you spend all day choosing “diet” foods over more satisfying foods, you run your willpower down. You don’t use your whole brain when making decisions on what to eat and what not to eat; it's not that simple. Different parts of your brain use different amounts of energy, and your cortex requires the most. The following explanation of the brain and its three parts will help you understand how the Bulletproof diet hacks the brain so you don’t have to waste energy willing yourself not to overeat.

Brain One: essential functions

Every living thing with a vertebrae has a “reptile brain”, commonly known as the R-Complex. This part of the brain controls essentials such as temperature regulation, heart rate, breathing, and balance. It is the first stop for energy. If you are not making enough energy and nutrients to keep the R-Complex running, you will die.

Brain Two: focus and emotion

The part of the brain called the limbic system is a combination of seven cortical regions: hippocampus, amygdala, hypothalamus, septal nuclei, cingulate cortex, mammillary bodies, and fornix. Together they control instincts, emotions, behavior, memory, hormones, and how organisms respond to stress (fight or flight response). It tries to help us survive but ends up working against us in three main ways—for now we will focus on just two. The first is that it is distractible. Having a hard time paying attention? That’s your limbic brain triggering your fight or flight response to make sure you’re safe. The second way our brain get us into trouble is that it makes us want to eat anything and everything we can get our hands on. It wants you to eat things haphazardly to make sure you don’t die of starvation. When you eat food that contains things that are harmful to your system, your limbic brain can trigger your fight or flight response, which can be measured by your heart rate, along with a strong craving for sugary foods that will provide a quick burst of energy to deal with the threat. You experience this reaction as a food craving. Unfortunately, many people experience food cravings so often that they have forgotten what hunger without a simultaneous craving looks like. When you are resisting your craving, you are using your third brain.

Brain Three: processor

This final part of the brain is called the cortex. Consisting of four different lobes, the frontal, parietal, temporal, and occipital, it’s job is to process information. The first brain, the R-Complex, is first in line to get the nutrients and calories it needs, followed by your limbic system, leaving your cortex the leftovers. If you only get enough food and nutrients to keep the first two brains happy or eat the wrong things, your cortex runs out of energy first, which means you run out of willpower.

Traditional weight-loss diets don’t provide enough fuel for all three brains. If you eat a low-calorie breakfast, your body will produce insulin, which allows your cells to use the sugar you just ingested and thus cause your blood sugar to drop. Your limbic system will start to panic because it thinks the body is running out of the fuel it needs to stay alive. It then starts to pester you to eat something sweet to raise your blood sugar. This is how your biology keeps you from starving to death, but it’s not serving you in this situation. What your body thought was an emergency was just you trying to follow your diet! By the time lunch comes around, you’re completely out of willpower and you give in and eat pizza or fried chicken or fast food. Or maybe you try to bribe your limbic system by eating "just one piece of candy" with your fat-free lunch. Does this sound familiar?

Another common scenario is that you eat a big breakfast that contains either toxins or foods that you’re sensitive to. Eating a food you’re sensitive to can trigger your “fight or flight” response, and your limbic system demands sugar to give you extra energy to “run away.” If the food contains toxins, your liver uses blood sugar to oxidize them, which causes a drop in available energy for your brain. The result is that you feel like you need sugar right away.

To use your foods to manipulate your brain, you need to know which foods tell your limbic system that you’re starving by either causing a drop in blood sugar or stimulating a “fight or flight” response. On the Bulletproof diet, foods are broken down into three categories (Bulletproof Food Guide). There are “Bulletproof” foods that you can almost always eat freely, “Suspect” foods to approach with caution because they might cause a craving for you, and “Kryptonite” foods that almost always limit your performance, make you weak, and should be avoided altogether.

While some foods like high-fructose corn syrup are Kryptonite for everyone, each of us also has some foods that are our own personal Kryptonite. For example, chocolate is a healthy Bulletproof food for most people, but for someone who is sensitive to it, chocolate is Kryptonite. Most people are blissfully unaware that some foods that they eat all of the time are secretly making them weak and causing cravings.

So whether you recognize these symptoms of decision fatigue on a daily basis or every once in a while, it is important to know why these are caused and how to avoid them. Through proper nutrition, you can live more efficiently and gain control over these biological reactions that zap mental performance.

The number one reason the Bulletproof Diet is so effective and easy to maintain is that it gives you back your willpower instead of zapping it. It can help you have more energy than you’ve ever had, by nourishing your cells, balancing your hormone levels, and ending the repetitive and exhausting battle with food cravings. At first, you will use some willpower to switch from the foods you’re accustomed to eating to the better choices. After just a few days, you’ll enjoy making Bulletproof choices because of how they make you feel.