I am just wondering if I'm grasping this concept correctly...

If our insulin is released then we are not losing weight. Our insulin can be released from triggers and that causes us to have the cravings at the same time of the release??? (you follow?- am I making sense?? or do I have it all wrong??)

So what I was really wondering is if I start daydreaming about a doughnut (just as an example), then I can start craving one just from thinking about it. Is that making a release in my insulin and keeping me from losing weight just from a THOUGHT???

I'm sorry if this is confusing, but I can't get that off my mind. Could I go into a stall just from being around my family at a gathering and they are all eating birthday cake and brownies with ice cream and I'd just love to have one, but I don't dare, but the thoughts of it make me crave it.

Please tell me... Am I NUTS?

Carianne

You may be referring to the "Pavlovian response" .... where it is said that some people have an insulin response even when they eat something sweetened artificially. I'm not sure where this came from, or how true it is. As far as I know, it's only a theory because some people seem to resume their weight loss when artificial sweeteners are eliminated from the diet. I'm not aware of any scientific study that concludes there really IS an release of insulin except with sugar alcohols. It probably has more to do with the fact that most things are artificially sweetened with aspartame which is definitely known to cause stalls, usually because they are over-consumed. Atkins recommends avoiding it altogether, or no more than 2 servings per day. Splenda and saccharin are the sweeteners of choice.

As for your daydreaming question, I don't think it would be possible to cause an insulin response at the mere thought of eating something sweet or being around it.

Not exactly sure where you got this at, however we do not release insulin when we are not losing weight. Sometimes our bodies take a break from losing on it's own to "catch" up. Other times our weight loss stalls can come from not eating enough which has nothing to do with the release of insulin in our blood stream.

The triggers that set off the release of insulin are physical. Taste. I highly doubt a thought could produce this reaction, and I am unsure if any medical research has been done on the subject.

I wouldn't worry about it too much though As stress can also cause weight loss stalls.

Thanks so much for responding. I just had to get that question off my mind and out in the open. It is really reassuring to know that my splenda shouldn't really do much harm, and so far it hasn't, but I'm not much of an abuser either. Now I can stop stressing over the issue, silly me.

Carianne

I hate to throw a monkey wrench into this discussion. But I have read in some book, somewhere, about this very subject. For the life of me I cannot remember which book it was in.

Anyway, some author DOES suggest that this might be possible. The idea of releasing insulin without actually consuming anything. You know that old adage........... " I get fat just looking at it" .......... LOL......... who knows.

So........ if anyone comes across it in a book, let us know, because it is going to bother me until I find it.

How to deal with it? Distance yourself from that cake and ice cream at your family gathering, put it away as soon as you are done serving it!

Other than that....... who knows, We can only do the best that we can, and then we must move on.

Libby

Libbyfcr, I see you are on CALP and that is one of the few books I have read. Maybe I picked up that crazy idea from that book. I lent it to my neighbor, so maybe you could take a look see. ? I just hope it's all a silly idea and that you need to do something physical to have a physical reaction.

Thanks for reply!
Carianne

I read my CALP book a lot and can't remember it being in there. I looked a little bit today for it, but I will look some more.

Many of the books I have read are borrowed from my Library. I dunno............. sorry to worry you........... but I think you can only avoid so much in life, and your food daydreams are probably not one of them. I would focus on what you are actually putting into your body and not stress too much about it. Like Agonycat said........ stress can be more of a problem than the daydream/insulin release theory.

Later,
Libby