Excess Weight and Cravings are Not Your Fault: Food’s Addictive Properties

I am collapsed on my couch at 10 PM, frantically inhaling handfuls of popcorn. After all, popcorn is a low-calorie, high-fiber, whole-grain food. While I eat, I am already mentally scanning the refrigerator for which leftovers I can eat next. Didn’t I buy some gluten-free crackers I could eat with cheese?

For years, I blamed myself. I was a registered dietitian and biochemist who should know better. I had the knowledge. What I didn’t have was an understanding of my emotions (a topic for another day) or just how powerful the food industry had become at creating products that override our biology.

There’s actual science behind this. Your brain is responding exactly as it was designed, and foods have been hijacked for those ancient survival systems in ways nature never intended.

The Combo of Sugar, Fat, Salt Hijacks Your Brain

Your body evolved in an environment of scarcity. For thousands of years, finding foods high in calories meant survival. Your ancestors who could efficiently store energy from rare sweet fruits or fatty animal protein were the ones who lived long enough to pass on their genes. And now you are here with that efficient survival in your genes.

That same biology is now working against you in our modern food environment. Research shows that foods combining sugar and fat activate reward centers in the brain more powerfully than either nutrient alone.¹ When you add salt to the mix, your brain’s reward response keeps climbing, making it nearly impossible to feel satisfied.²

Have you noticed that you are rarely wishing you could eat more chicken? The foods you feel deprived if you don’t get are usually the salty, crispy carbs – either sugary or starchy. Potato chips. Ice cream. Cookies. Pizza. French fries. They all combine sugar, fat, and salt in ways that don’t really exist in nature. An apple has sugar. Nuts have fat. But almost nothing in nature combines concentrated sugar AND fat AND salt in the same bite. Evolution never prepared our brains for that combination.

In a groundbreaking NIH study, researchers created two diets matched for calories, sugar, fat, fiber, and macronutrients. The only difference? One used ultra-processed foods while the other used whole, unprocessed ingredients. Participants could eat as much as they wanted. After 2 weeks, people gained nearly 2 pounds (and consumed an extra 500 calories per day), while people on the whole foods are lose 2 pounds.³

Your Brain on Ultra-Processed Food

The combination of refined carbohydrates, added fats, and salt causes the reward system of our brain to light up, demanding more, while the satiety signals that should tell you to stop get drowned out.

• Dopamine surges: These food combinations trigger reward pathways in the brain similar to addictive substances. Your brain remembers this feeling and starts craving it, creating cycles of desire that feel almost impossible to resist. Studies using brain imaging show that highly processed foods activate the same neural pathways as addictive drugs.⁴ Another study found that foods with both high glycemic load (quick sugar spike) and high fat content were rated as more addictive than drugs by people who had experienced both.⁵
• Eating is faster: Ultra-processed foods are engineered to be softer and easier to eat quickly. The texture and sensory properties of these foods directly influence how fast we eat them.³ Study participants eat faster, about 17 more calories per minute compared to unprocessed meals.⁶ When you eat quickly, satiety signals don’t have time to kick in before you’ve already overeaten. This means that by the time you realize you are full, you have eaten way more than your body needed.
• Brain inflammation causes depression and anxiety: Diets high in sugar and processed foods also trigger inflammatory responses in your body and brain.⁷ Brain inflammation is associated with impulsivity, making it even harder to resist the next craving.⁸ It’s also linked to depression and anxiety, which many of us then try to soothe… with “comfort food”.

The food industry knows this. They have entire departments dedicated to finding the “bliss point”: the precise ratio of sugar, fat, and salt that makes you unable to stop eating.⁹ They deliberately engineer food to be addictive.

Why Dieting Makes It Worse

Now, couple this deliberately engineered craving, with what diets do to your brain. When you tell someone not to think of an elephant, they immediately think of an elephant. So when you tell yourself not to eat much of these foods, all you can think about is how much you want it, and how disappointing it is that you can’t.

In the Minnesota Starvation Study from the 1950s, men were placed on a restrictive diet and became obsessed with food. Years after the study ended, many still reported abnormal eating behaviors.¹⁰

Your brain interprets restriction as famine. It cranks up the reward value of high-calorie foods as a survival mechanism. This is why you can be “good” during the week and find yourself eating an entire pizza on the weekend. Your biology is fighting you every step of the way.

I spent decades caught in this cycle. Restrict until I couldn’t, then lose control. This is the diet cycle.

Not All Foods Fit

When I finally eliminated sugar and processed foods from my diet, something shifted after a few weeks. The constant food noise in my head went quiet. For the first time in my adult life, I could think about something other than food.

The research backs this up. People who eliminate ultra-processed foods report significant reductions in cravings within days.[6] When people in the study ate unprocessed foods instead of ultra-processed ones, they naturally consumed fewer calories (about 500 less per day) without trying to restrict. They lost weight without dieting. Their bodies simply responded differently to real food.

I WANT to tell you all foods fit. At the end of every challenge, I have people re-introduce foods and see what they can tolerate. But for those of us with food and weight struggles, most of us cannot handle these addictive foods.

First, you need to stop eating the foods that are hijacking your brain. Not reduce them or have them in moderation. Eliminate them for at least two weeks so your system can reset. I know this sounds extreme. I resisted it for years. But those “just a little” strategies kept me trapped in the cycle. Getting rid of these foods STOPS the food noise. Just a few weeks and it GOES AWAY.

When you eat protein, fat, and vegetables at every meal, the cravings start to fade and you feel satisfied. Your blood sugar stabilizes. Your body gets the signal that food is abundant, so it doesn’t need to activate survival mode.

Then, you need to address why you’re turning to food in the first place. For most of us, overeating isn’t about hunger. It’s about comfort, distraction, or numbing feelings we don’t want to feel. Until you develop other ways to handle stress and emotions, you’ll keep reaching for food even after the physical addiction fades.

I had to learn to journal on my feelings instead of eating them. I had to get comfortable being uncomfortable. I had to learn new ways to deal with stress. None of this was taught in my nutrition degree, but it was the actual key to freedom.

Four years ago, I thought about food constantly. I planned my life around when I could eat next. I felt hopeless. Once I started working with my biology instead of against it, everything shifted. The weight came off, but more importantly, the obsession lifted. Food became just food again.

If you’re reading this and feeling hopeless, I want you to know the way you feel right now doesn’t have to be permanent. Your struggles with food make sense given what you’re up against. You’re human, with a human brain, trying to fight biology, brain chemistry, and a multi-billion dollar industry designed to keep you eating.

The path forward likely requires changing what you eat, how you handle emotions, and the way you deal with challenges. So be gentle with yourself. I know right now you are thinking it’s too hard. I resisted for years until I saw that picture of me in 2018, and finally something drastic had to be done. But life got so much better since then! I look back at old me and feel sad that food was my only comfort and joy.

Life is so much richer than just food. And you deserve that!

If you want to work with me about breaking food additions, check out my Fat-Burning, Craving-Busting, Food Reset Program or book a free strategy call. I also offer a package of a course and mind/body shifting session.

References:

1. DiFeliceantonio AG, et al. Supra-additive effects of combining fat and carbohydrate on food reward. Cell Metab. 2018;28(1):33-44.e3.
2. Bolhuis DP, et al. Salt promotes passive overconsumption of dietary fat in humans. J Nutr. 2016;146(4):838-845.
3. Hall KD, et al. Ultra-processed diets cause excess calorie intake and weight gain: an inpatient randomized controlled trial of ad libitum food intake. Cell Metab. 2019;30(1):67-77.e3.
4. Gearhardt AN, et al. Neural correlates of food addiction. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2011;68(8):808-816.
5. Schulte EM, et al. Which foods may be addictive? The roles of processing, fat content, and glycemic load. PLoS One. 2015;10(2):e0117959.
6. Forde CG. From perception to ingestion; the role of sensory properties in energy selection, eating behaviour and food intake. Food Quality and Preference. 2018 Jun 1;66:171-7.
7. Della Corte K, et al. Effect of dietary sugar intake on biomarkers of subclinical inflammation: a systematic review and meta-analysis of intervention studies. Nutrients. 2018;10(5):606.
8. Gassen J, et al. Inflammation predicts decision-making characterized by impulsivity, present focus, and an inability to delay gratification. Sci Rep. 2019;9(1):4928.
9. Moss M. Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us. Random House; 2013.
10. Keys A, et al. The Biology of Human Starvation. University of Minnesota Press; 1950.