With the exception of that being your ideal weight, of course.

What I'm saying is that if you are an adult, and of sound mind, and are still making dangerously unhealthy choices regarding eating, then you fall easily into the category of being food addicted.

doesn't it?

First of all, I'd like to say, let's not put every addiction in the same category.

Heroin and cigarettes raise dopamine levels.

Alcohol and sugar raise serotonin levels. That's why a lot of alcoholics become sugar junkys.

Not all are deficient in both, but the deficiency is what the addict is responding to. The deficiency is hereditary. Some who are deficient in serotonin and now is addicted to carbs may have had a parent who was an alcoholic.

Secondly, let's not group everyone into one category. I can't figure out, for the life of me, why LCers would do that? Look at what we get from just being on a low carb eating plan from other people. Everyone grouped together in the "egg, meat and fat diet."

I don't care what subject you are talking about, you can not lump together a whole group of people into one category and this subject is no different.

My overeating has nothing to do with addiction or an emotional problem, it is simply habit. I do not eat all night, I do not eat when I am upset, I do not eat crap all day. Only when i have PMS do I eat ruffles chips dipped in soft chocolate icecream.

Some people are using food as comfort; some aren't. Some are addicted to it because of chemical problems; some aren't. Some have a lifelong habit of overeating, some don't. Some just let time catch up to them.

Let people be who they are. If I say I don't have an addiction and you say you do, then ok. I don't...you do...that's cool. Why do you have to say I do just so I'll be like you?

"ruffles chips dipped in soft chocolate ice cream"
WOW, blast from my PMS past. The memory made me smile,thank you.

I hate to say it but I'm in complete agreement with this. Ex-anythings seem to see their addiction in everyone. Ex-smokers, ex-drinkers, ex-overeaters, ex-My Pretty Pony collectors, any addiction seems to fit this general mindset.
BTW, I smoke...so I'm not talking down to addicts. I do understand the mechanics of addiction. Not much fun.

To some people, no matter what you answer to the accusation of being "in denial," it will only serve as further truth that you're in denial. Argue intelligently? You're so deep in denial that you've obviously researched what response to give. Get angry? Anger is a sign of denial. Refuse to answer? Then you're so heavily in denial that you won't even acknowledge the accusation. Etc.

I told my husband that I was sexually abused as a child. From that moment onward, EVERYTHING was "because I was sexually abused". If I got angry, I was "misdirecting my anger because I could never yell at the abuser". If I said I felt fine about it, then I had "buried my sexual abuse". If I had a bad day, it was "overreaction due to the past abuse". Etc. One time I got so p*ssed at him for this, I almost said, "All right. If I kick you in the nuts right now, will that be due to my past abuse?" (I think the only reason I didn't do it is that his answer would have been "yes"! ) I hate being analyzed by other people.

I imagine a medication is a stronger addiction than some others. I know it was hader physically for my husband to give up cigerettes than coffee, but coffee was still an addiction. He had physical symptoms etc. When I first stoped eating sugar I was sick! Headache, fluelike feelings that lasted about 3 days. The cravings were pretty intense. I wondered the house lokking for something that would help. Luckily I'd cleared the house! LOL

Sugar raises dopamine levels.

Sugar triggers production of the brain's natural opioids. That is a key to the addiction process. The brain is getting addicted to its own opioids as it would to morphine or heroin. Drugs give a bigger effect, but it is essentially the same process.


"Earlier research found that this pattern sensitizes both dopamine and opioid receptors in rats. A cycle of deprivation and excessive sugar intake reinforces bingeing.

Abstinence also triggers withdrawal symptoms that resemble those of drug addiction, such as anxiety, chattering teeth and tremors. The taste of sugar makes the brain release natural opioids, and the bingeing causes dopamine release.

"There is something about this combination of heightened opioid and dopamine responses in the brain that leads to dependency," explains Hoebel. "Without these neurotransmitters, the animal begins to feel anxious and wants to eat sweet food again."

The rats exhibited behavioral changes even when sugar was replaced with the artificial sweetener saccharin. "It appears to be the sweetness, more than the calories, that fuels sugar dependence," says Hoebel."

http://cms.psychologytoday.com/arti...0124-000002.xml

I'm not lumping anyone, or diagnosing because of my own problems. Aren't we all here for the same reason? I'm sorry, but how can you let an extra 100 or more lbs. "catch up" with you and not have a problem? I'm simply stating facts here.

I guess they better go on Ratkins.

As to how an extra 100 lbs. "catch up," I don't think they do. The average person tries a million diets and gains on each one. You see yet more pounds, you panic, you try another gimmic in terror, you get even heavier. I don't see anybody here (just from my own viewing of the forum) who just let the pounds creep up. 99% of the time, that person has been in a continuous state of panic over his/her weight for years and has tried just about everything before s/he stumbled upon Atkins.

By saying people who let 100 lbs "catch up" with them has "a problem" you ARE lumping us all together. Yep, we have "a problem", but for many of us, it's not the SAME problem.

You've said yourself, you are/were addicted to food and never got over 150 lbs.. By your own logic, weight isn't an indicator of addiction, yet you turn around and say weight IS an indicator of addiction if you're fat.

Addiction is real, it doesn't discriminate by size, age, gender, race. Just because a person is fat, you can't just say they're an addict without understanding their INDIVIDUAL case.

I never said they were exactly the same problems, nor did I deny anyone their individuality. I simply stated facts and asked a question. I'm not going to argue semantics with you. We obviously disagree. However, I'm not sure how you can argue with basic neurology.

I could use the opposite example of: "If you are a bulimic, weigh 98 lbs, and are 5'7, bingeing and purging regularly, how could you say you don't have a problem?" Bingeing and purging/starving are signs of addiction.

Eating shouldn't have to come with a learner’s manual. If you have issues with over eating, you have an eating disorder, or issues with food. If you have unhealthy eating "habits" then you're most likely dealing with a neurological (chemical) addiction. Sorry, but it's science, not my personal opinion. Argue all you like, I'm done on this subject. And for the record, habit and addiction go hand in hand. Sugar (carbs) are the addiction, over eating is the habit. I think we are all here for the same reason; because controlling our carb intake curbs our compulsion to want to overeat. And overeating, is what got us fat.

Gina=chocoholic

Well, the discussion about whether everybody is an addict who is fat, drags the attention from the question whether it is the case in general.

I would say the generation-wide on and off-dieting is showing the magnitude of the problem. What I personnally experienced is that fat people are in general in denial about (the cause of) being overweight, that's what triggered the resemblance with people drinking to much. Trying to convince other (fat) people to not take it not so serious, that their husbands don't mind, that it's not that a big problem etc. etc.

Now is being in denial not a thing that points to addiction persé, but in combination with a thing you enter above normal proportions in your body, it looks so to me.

That's your opinion; mine is different; who knows which of us is right but it's an interesting question. In reference to the above, I don't think it confirms addiction; instead it confirms that we're eating the wrong *kinds* of foods. It doesn't make sense that people in other generations would not have been "addicted" to foods, while we are. Rather, people in other generations did not have processed products from which to choose on shelves.

If it were a simple matter of addiction to foods, then the 20th century would not have been the first century that showed incredible rates of obesity. And yes, prior generations did have white sugar (but more often coarse sugar) and they did have white flour (but again, not as easily accessible and certainly not as easy to make as coarse brown flours). However, they didn't have them as easily, as conveniently and just around the corner at the store. "Refined" items were harder to get and much more expensive by comparison. If anything, it's industry that caused our "addiction"--not our "demand" for sugarey foods. Demand would cause prices to go up--not down. (Supply/demand.) Instead, we are able now to mass-produce these items more cheaply than their unrefined counterparts.

The way it happened was that manufacturers made refined foods cheaper and easier to get *first*. *Then* we had the obesity problem. True addictions don't evolve that way. You don't see the price of cocaine plummeting because people demand more of it. You sure as heck don't see the price of cigarettes plummeting. In a true addiction, you'll walk two miles to the store if your car has broken down and you are out of cigarettes. You'll sell all your personal belongings in order to get your heroin. With sugar so-called "addiction", this has not been the pattern. It was the opposite. Sugar was around for quite some time before it became so cheap but you didn't hear about Jesse James holding up a train in order to get at the sugar.

Addictions, when they're real, don't wait for humans to make them easily available. How easily available is crack? Is it at the grocery store? No, it's bought in secret with furtive glances and it's bought instead of feeding the children. If processed foods were an addiction, you would have heard of sugar "deals", but you don't. You would have read about families gorging on sugar until it was gone, then doing whatever they could to go into the nearest town and get more.

When tobacco was introduced to Europe in the 17th century, it was IMMEDIATELY apparent how incredibly addictive it was. People didn't have it once in a blue moon while it was available and then forget about it the rest of the time. However, with refined sugar, people DID eat it when it was available, then forget about it the rest of the time.

Addictions don't work in reverse. They don't wait until availability to take hold of the human physiology and psyche.

As to the study on the rats above, are those symptoms of withdrawal, or are they symptoms of insulin flooding followed by a downward plummet? Isn't that physical? Isn't that what causes overweight...our bodies needing to be rebalanced after insulin has been rocketed up and then down? Feeling our levels go down again, we rush for more food, and instinct tells us to make that the most easily processed food available. It's an imbalance--a very very real one--but I'm not sure it's an addiction.

Now, when you stop sugar, you do crave. OH BOY do you crave. But is that due to addiction? Just because the symptoms are like withdrawal, doesn't mean it actually is withdrawal. It's my belief that the symptoms come because we suddenly don't have the source of fuel our bodies are used to getting, and the body takes a few days to accept this fact and switch over to burning fat instead of glucose. In the few days before this happens, we're shaky, irritable and headache-ey...which makes sense since we're not burning glucose but we're not burning fat yet either; we're in effect "starving" for those few days. And what do we crave? What ANY body would crave during times of starvation--the food that will go IMMEDIATELY to our bloodstream. That only makes sense. I don't think that's psychological at all. It's very real, very physical and the very normal response of a healthy body looking to save itself.

Anyone doing low carbs would crave the carbs at first. That's your body asking you to give it what is easily accessible, not because you are addicted. It knows how easily a piece of bread would go down and it could be assimilated. Whereas a piece of meat will take a longer time; or even an apple.

I don't care how fat/thin a person was or how controlled their eating was/wasn't. If you take away all but 20 grams of carbs very suddenly, they are going to have a reaction. It is physiological. For anyone to sit here and say that this means you are an addict is way beyond ludicrous; it's ignorant and unknowing about the human body.

Glendora: I'm sorry to hear of your past pain and I hope your DH will stop being a present pain. I say "kick him..." Maybe if you did that every time he analyzed you; he'd stop.

Thanks, QuietOne. I actually had a few talks with him during the height of his "it's because of the abuse" craze. He has since pretty much stopped doing it...just short of my kicking him. Maybe he knew the kicking was coming and that's why he stopped!

Your post (about lowering carbs suddenly) made a lot of sense & put things in perspective, thanks for that.

I’ve read this at least 5 times and it still makes no sense to me.



I wasn’t talking about insulin, I was talking about dopamine.

”Activation of the brain’s dopamine motivation circuits is distinct from the role the brain chemical plays when people actually eat, and may be similar to what addicts experience when craving drugs. Scientists have done extensive research showing that addictive drugs increase the levels of dopamine in the brain, and that addicts have fewer dopamine receptors than non-addicts. Last year, in an effort to understand the relationship of the dopamine system to obesity, they found that obese individuals also had fewer dopamine receptors than normal control subjects.”

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2002/bnlpr052002.htm




“Obese people have fewer receptors for dopamine, a neurotransmitter that helps produce feelings of satisfaction and pleasure. Scientists have done extensive research showing that dopamine plays an important role in drug addiction. Among other things, they¹ve found that addictive drugs increase the level of dopamine in the brain, and that addicts have fewer dopamine receptors than normal subjects.”

http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/2001/bnlpr020101.htm

“One of the neurotransmitters playing a major role in addiction is dopamine. Many of the concepts that apply to dopamine apply to other neurotransmitters as well. As a chemical messenger, dopamine is similar to adrenaline. Dopamine affects brain processes that control movement, emotional response, and ability to experience pleasure and pain. “

http://www.utexas.edu/research/asrec/dopamine.html

”Sugar addiction is more than a trite expression people use to describe their sweet tooth. A pattern of fasting and overloading on sugary foods may foster dependence, according to a study published in Obesity Research.”

http://cms.psychologytoday.com/arti...124-000002.html

So yes, it’s real withdrawal, not just your body switching fuels. Sugar is an addictive substance, that’s a scientific fact. If you want to make it up as you go along, ignore scientific research, and the way the human brain functions, more power to you. I choose to base what I believe in on substantiated evidence, not opinionated malarkey. And in case you didn't know this, physical and emotional responses both come from neurotransmitters in the brain. You can't separate the two unless you’re talking about decisions based on emotion or reason, in which case, reason would be the healthy psychological choice. There are just some things that aren’t up for debate, like the fact that we have neurotransmitters and receptors that fire whether we choose to acknowledge this reality or not.