Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Reconnecting Body to Brain

Hey Everyone - Great guest post by Dan Francis from Ultimate Fitness Gear

Enjoy y'all!

A.G.

Finding the body/brain connection is vital to weight loss. Your brain controls the systems that trigger the need to eat as well as the sensation that you are full so that you stop eating. Without these sensations and triggers you would either never get the urge to eat and would starve to death or you would never receive the message that you have had enough and you would eat until your stomach explodes. Once you are able to reconnect the two systems back to each other, controlling the amount of food that you eat will become much simpler.

Did you know that it takes twenty minutes from the start of a meal to the point that you are full for the brain to get that message? Now, think about how long it takes you to finish a meal of any size. The faster you eat, the more you will eat before your brain finally sends down the message that you have had enough. Eat slowly, chewing each bite carefully and putting your fork down between bites will allow your brain to catch up and stop you from cleaning your plate.

Music influences the speed at which you eat, as does dinner conversation. Have you ever noticed that you eat more in the restaurants that feature peppy, upbeat music or when you are out dining with your rowdier friends? The music is not a coincidence. They choose the upbeat music so that they can get you to shovel down more food in less time, get you out and get the next set of diners to that table so the calorie carnival can start all over. Restaurants do not really care about your waistline, only their bottom line. The more food they can get you to shove down your gullet, the better. If they can get you to waddle to the door faster, even better for them!

We are tricked by our serving-ware as well. The size of dinner plates both at home and out has become enormous. We put the average sized dollop of food on these plates and we seriously become convinced that we are practically starving ourselves. In order to convince our brain that the serving is the proper proportion, we double or even triple what we should have in the first place. We supersize our plates and it is supersizing us as well.

Finally, our sense of smell tricks our brains as well. Certain food smells are proven to make us feel as if we are hungry, even when we are not. One of the most common is the smell of baking bread. Grocery stores that have in-store bakeries will vent the exhaust so that it wafts through the store knowing that many people will be unable to resist the powerful smell. Helplessly, we head to the bakery section of the store and select a loaf of bread, even though we do not need it. The brain is flooded with the sensations that there is hunger, all triggered by one scent.

Knowing all of this, we have to be able to make an effort to slow down, choose slower music when we can or block out what we are hearing when we can not. We need to opt for smaller plates when we are at home and split portions with our friends when we are out. And we need to wear nose plugs when we are grocery shopping!




Article written by Dan Francis of Ultimate Fitness Gear, your top source for the Insanity Workout on the internet.

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