Change Your Brain Every Day - SUGAR: Why Are You Addicted to It?

Episode Date: December 12, 2018

Let’s be honest, we all know that sugar is detrimental to our health, and we’d surely feel better if we were to just break up with sugar and be done with it. But why is breaking up so hard to do? Dr. Daniel Amen and Tana Amen discuss why our relationship with sugar is like dating the bad boy, and while it may make us feel good for a short amount of time, eventually it leaves us feeling terrible.

Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. I'm Dr. Daniel Amen. And I'm Tana Amen. Here we teach you how to win the fight for your brain to defeat anxiety, depression, memory loss, ADHD, and addictions. The Brain Warriors Way podcast is brought to you by Amen Clinics, where we've transformed lives for three decades using brain spec imaging to better target treatment and natural ways to heal the brain. For more information, visit amenclinics.com.

The Brain Warriors Way podcast is also brought to you by BrainMD, where we produce the highest quality nutraceutical products to support the health of your brain and body. For more information, visit brainmdhealth.com. Welcome to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Welcome back. We're talking about love from Feel Better Fast and Make It Last. Another review we got, food addiction. This is Elite Sucka. That's an interesting name, Elite Sucka. Food addiction can be very subtle.

God bless you guys for this very informative video on food, depression, and good nutrition. Well, you are welcome. I want to start this podcast with a story. And do you remember when we started doing the Daniel Plan with Saddleback Church? I do. I gave a lecture on food and how to eat in order to serve your health and the health of your family. Fulfill your purpose. And a couple of weeks later, I had a woman,

one of the pastor's wives come in my office. And like I'm doing today, I'm drinking tea because I drank a lot of tea. And I'm drinking tea, getting to know her. And she said, could you put the tea down? And in my head, I'm like, that's weird. But, you know, I'm generally pretty compliant, right? I'm generally pretty compliant. You are, yeah.

And so I put the tea down wondering what is going to happen next. So you're not, I'm suspicious. He's not. Why did you want me to do that? She said, I didn't want you to spit it at me. I'm thinking to myself, you know, I've never spit tea at anybody. And she said, when I heard you talk on the way home from the lecture, I told my husband, I would rather get Alzheimer's disease than give up sugar.

We've heard a lot of weird things about people giving up sugar. I wasn't going to spit the tea at her. I would not have done that, I promise. But my next comment to her was, did you date the bad boys in high school? And she goes, what do you mean? I said, clearly you have a bad relationship with sugar. That you're in love with something that's pro-inflammatory, that's addictive, that makes you stupid and fat. So you're in an abusive relationship with sugar. And she never thought about that. And ultimately she ended up breaking up with sugar. You always say it's so much nicer than I do. I just look at people and I'm like, why would you want to be with something that beats the hell out of you? It's just like beating the crap out of you.

I just have never understood that. Someone did that to me, I would tear it apart. But, you know, I'm a little different. Have you ever been in a bad relationship? Oh, yeah. And someone puts their hands on me, it's not a good thing. It's not a good thing. It's not, not a good thing.

What was that like? You know, sometimes it starts off subtly and that's, it's insidious, right? And that's the problem with sugar. It's insidious. So you don't,

you don't see it coming. And that's where, that's where it's hard. And by the time it happens, it's sometimes you're like already in and it's you have to like figure out how to get out of it right and that's where sugar is tricky for me but no let's let's say with relationships right because once you um make love to someone else they actually become to live in the pleasure centers of your right so So once you get attached to other people,

it's really hard to break, even if they're abusive to you. Right. But we all have different reactions. Now, if someone puts their hands on me, it's like, you know,

that's different. Some people just cower and they, they take it. Yeah. But you and I have both been, you know, we do the history of our relationships and some bad it. Yeah, but you and I have both been, you know, we do the history of our relationships and some bad relationships,

relationships that were clearly not good, but we ended up staying way too long because you get attached, right? And thankfully, we're in the best relationship of our lives and we cherish it and protect it. But I'm not going to be in the best relationship of our lives. Right. And we cherish it and protect it. But I'm not going to be in a bad relationship anymore. Especially not physically. And I'm damn sure not going to pay for it with food.

Right. And so I want you to think about your relationship with food, with products in, in a loving way. So I was actually sort of making a point. So it's insidious, like the emotional abuse is insidious and that's what sugar does to you. It kind of makes you depressed before you realize that it's actually affecting you emotionally. And, but, but what, for me, it's a physical, like when someone crosses over the line into physical abuse, it's a trigger for me. And that's a no-go. One of us is going to get seriously hurt.

So it's like that's a line you don't cross. And so it's like that feeling you just like, I don't see red, I feel red. And it's going to end right there. That's what sugar does. So the mental part of it, the emotional part of it is pretty insidious. You don't sort of see it coming at first, but, but in the meantime, it's physically just beating the hell out of you. Why would you let someone do that to you? Anything. And sugar has no place occupying the same part of your brain that when people say, Oh my God, I love it so much. I can't give it up. Why would you let it occupy the same place in your brain that when people say, oh my God, I love it so much. I can't give it up. Why would

you let it occupy the same place in your brain that your child does or that someone you love occupies? That doesn't make sense to me. So that's, that's for me when it was like clear. And so many people go, I love bread. I love wine. I love sodas. I love fries. I love donuts. And they can't imagine their lives without those things because they've allowed their pleasure centers to be hijacked by processed foods. Well, part of it wasn't their fault. That make other. And part of it was not their fault. Correct. But now that you know.

Once you know. Right. You can do better. Know better, do better. When you're about to eat something, ask yourself, does this serve me or does it hurt me? We're habitual creatures. The more you allow yourself to do something that's not good for you, the more you will do something that is not good for you. The more you do something that is good for you,

the more you will want to do that. So you're building positive habitual tracks in your brain, or you're building negative habitual tracks in your brain. I would go for the positive. Stay with us. Use the code PODCAST10 to get a 10% discount on a full evaluation at amenclinics.com or on our supplements at brainmdhealth.com. Thank you for listening to the Brain Warriors Way podcast. Go to iTunes and leave a review and you'll automatically be entered into a drawing to get a free signed copy of the Brain Warriors Way and the Brain Warriors Way cookbook we give away every month.