Ice Cream IS REALLY Crystal Meth to Me!!! by Heather M.

 I went to the podiatrist today. My plantar fasciitis was really hitting me hard last week. I figured it was time to reconnect with him and see what we could do. My plan - do something to cut down the swelling/pain that was there now and commit to losing 20 pounds. I know that the extra weight is really making things worse, and I really feel like the problems will clear up if I lose the extra weight. Twenty pounds is 14% of my current body weight (no fair figuring out the math), and getting rid of it has to help. The problem is that I don't think I should even try to run until most of the weight is gone. Until then, I will be trying to turn the room pictured below into my little exercise room. Yes, we have an elliptical. No, I never want to use it. I think we are going to have to make friends in the near future. And, when I get rid of all the other junk in that room (let me know if you want something before I toss it), I'll have room for some mats and a place to do just regular exercise. We even have cable down there. What else could a girl ask for?

  

  

                                   I'll post some after photos when the room is completely cleaned up.   


 So, for all of you who have been waiting on pins and needles for my weekly running reports, I will have to give you something else. No, don't worry, I won't be posting before and after photos of myself in a sports bra and bike pants. (What are those people thinking?) And, I won't be doing week to week "I lost ??? pounds this weeks reports. This blog isn't about me. It's about running(maybe just 'fitness' right now from me), nutrition and charity. I may highlight my struggles with nutrition and how hard it is for me to eat properly and NOT eat the ice cream (or the cupcakes, bacon, McFlurries, french ries, Diet Coke, and basically every little piece of junk food that I purchase for my son.) I know, you want to say don't buy the stuff for my son, but I think if I do that, he may put himself up for adoption. An hour ago, after seeing me pout around the house looking for something to eat and settling for celery and hummus, he and my husband decided that I should be the one to drive him to Safeway to buy chocolate chip Little Bites. I have such a great support system around me!! Oh, and I knew right where the Little Bites could be found.
     This week's report will focus on addiction. Some people laugh at me, but sugar and fat are really an addiction for me. I know they are. The recent trip to Safeway was a killer for me, and I was hollering at anyone who got in my way. My husband asked if I was going to be one of those angry dieters, and I told him, "Yes, for now, I am."
     "Addicted to Food" is a new show on the OWN network which focuses on a residential food addiction clinic. The group leader is a wonderful Southern lady who somehow managed to handle her addiction to food. I remember seeing her as a guest on some health-related show, discussing her belief that she, and many of her clients, suffer from true "addiction" to food. She allowed doctors to hook her up to some sort of device monitoring her brain's reaction to certain, in my opinion, tasty foods. The results were remarkable. The same type of results were found in a recent Yale University study, "
Similar patterns of neural activation are implicated in addictive-like eating behavior and substance dependence: elevated activation in reward circuitry in response to food cues and reduced activation of inhibitory regions in response to food intake." (Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011 Aug;68(8):808-16. Epub 2011 Apr 4.) Let me rephrase a little  - when their subjects, many of whom were suspected of food addiction, were shown food and then given the food, their brains showed the same types of patterns as the brains of people who are addicted to substances such as drugs and alcohol. They got excited when they saw the food, and their brains calmed after they ate the food. (kind of like when I am cranky and frustrated, go out on a McFlurry run and take those first bites, mmmm!)
     Want more evidence. Check out this article (and notice the picture of the skinny girl eating the cupcake. Where did they get her?):

"There have been 28 studies in the past year alone, and experts say the findings are so overwhelming, they can no longer be dismissed.




Triggering cravings? There is a growing volume of research indicating that high-sugar, processed food can be as addictive as cocaine or nicotineThey found that when obese people and compulsive eaters were shown pictures of their favourite foods, a decision-making area of the brain called the orbital frontal cortex experiences a surge of dopamine. The same area is activated when cocaine addicts are shown a bag of white power." (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2056711/Cupcakes-addictive-cocaine-How-sugar-fat-laden-foods-like-drugs.html#ixzz1crve8RNk)     
     Ok, so what does this all say about fitness, nutrition, or charity? I'm not exactly sure, but to me, it means that I should focus more on nutrition. Let's be honest, most of those things I crave are at the teeny, tiny, itsy, bitsy top of the food pyramid. If I ate the things at the bottom in proportion to what I ate at the top, I would be taking in enough calories and fiber for the whole neighborhood. In my next posts, I will try to focus on nutrition and hopefully I can help others handle their addictive behaviors as I try to handle mine. For now, I will have to think of candy as my cocaine and ice cream as my crystal meth. I must resist!