Week 2
When it comes to eating, there are two parts of your brain that drive you. One part, the biological drive, tells you that you need to eat to stay alive. The other part is the desire drive, or the hedonic drive, and it has nothing to do with our biological need for food.
When we talk about hunger and feeling satiated, we need to talk about ghrelin, leptin, and insulin. Ghrelin is a hormone that is released when your stomach starts to empty. It sends a message to your brain saying, “Listen up! Pay attention! It’s time to eat.” When you ignore it—which we’ve all done—more ghrelin is released. This is why t you experience the feeling of being “hangry,” you lose focus.
Suddenly, the reason you were ignoring these signals—the project, the email, whatever else you may have been working on—is forgotten. There’s no focus left for that project or email, and your body is telling you, “Hey! It’s time to eat!” This is normal, but it’s important to listen to this hormone before it ends up attacking you.
Leptin is a hormone released from fat cells. It signals to the brain, “We’ve had enough. We’re full. We can push away the plate. We’re satisfied and satiated.” Leptin does not affect food intake from meal to meal. Instead, it acts to alter food intake and control energy expenditure over the long term.
Finally, insulin is probably something you’re more familiar with than the previous two hormones. Insulin is the hormone that controls the glucose levels in your body, and it is essential that this hormone be regulated. Having elevated insulin levels is unhealthy for a lot of reasons, and we know that refined sugar and flour—which are found in countless products on grocery store shelves—are products that raise insulin.