CONDITIONED WANTING AND HOW IT AFFECTS DECISION MAKING

Pavlov was a Research Psychologist who paved the way for our knowledge about conditioning. His famous dog experiment included giving a dog a treat every time he rang a bell. Over time, the dog associated the bell with a treat, and even in its absence began to salivate upon hearing the bell ring.

Every time you activate the reward centre, the brain takes a snapshot of both internal and external cues. These cues might include stress, nighttime television, sitting in your car, or at your work desk, etc. With repeated pairing of a hyperpalatable food and these cues, your brain eventually learns that these are associated with pleasure; so all it takes is the presence of a cue that sprinkles a bit of dopamine on the nucleus accumbens, an area that is responsible for WANTING. These cues are what we call the High Risk Time – the time that you are at highest vulnerability of consuming unplanned calories due to wanting rather than hunger.

YOU ARE NOT YOUR BRAIN

People living with obesity may have higher appetite drive than people who are lean. This makes standing up to urges more difficult in a calorie rich environment. Attempt to see thoughts, urges, and impulses for what they are: sensations caused by ancient brain messages that are designed to help you survive, but are no longer necessary. Learning to recognize this wanting and allowing urges to pass is a challenging but helpful skill.

You can use mindfulness to identify the deceptive thoughts and urges, evaluate and deflate their meaning. It’s important to identify them for what they are – useless chatter that you previously acted on, but inevitably keeping you from achieving your best health.

RETRAIN YOUR BRAIN

Much like your ability to condition yourself to want a hyperpalatable food, your goal for weight management should be to retrain your brain so that the cues that generate wanting in your reward centre will lessen. Simply put, the areas of the brain that fire together will wire together. If you repeatedly practice restraint against an impulse to eat, followed by giving yourself credit for it (remember that the brain learns best when it feels good, so this reflection piece is essential) then over time, you will decondition yourself from eating during your highest risk times. Your goal is to have that old behaviour become completely foreign!

MEDICATIONS

Certain Health Canada approved medications can also regulate the appetite drive that people with obesity characteristically struggle with. Speak to your doctor about medications that may help with weight loss.