WHY DIETING IS DIFFICULT

 I can see why this is foods obviously higher in sugar do produce a sugar surge in the blood as when we have low blood sugar we do crave more, and foods that are higher in fat generally have a nice mouth feel.

However to get over this problem the solution is to eat complex carbohydrates, such as whole meal flour and grains as the body takes longer to break these down and the sugars are released slowly at a steady pace and thus avoids the sugar peaks, highs and lows associated with junk food.

In the food pyramid complex carbs should be at the bottom, i.e. the bulk of our diet should be from complex carbs. These also contain by nature a lot of fibre thus they are filling and provide us with roughage to maintain a healthy gut.

ARTICLE BELOW IS FROM THE DAILY MAIL

Now we know why diets are difficult: Even if low-calorie food tastes better than junk the brain is still turned off

• High-calorie foods cause greater brain reactions
• When people eat, two different brain circuits fire - one in response to flavour and the other to blood sugar
• The response to blood sugar is stronger so high calorie foods are more satisfying

The brain prefers high-calorie foods even if they taste worse than the low-calorie alternatives, according to new research.
Scientists at Yale University found that calorie-dense foods cause greater responses in the brain than lower calorie foods.
Interestingly, they also discovered that this applies even if the calorie-free food tastes nicer.

Cake v cucumber: Foods which are high in calories cause greater responses in the brain than lower energy foods

Popular Science reported that the researchers discovered that there are two different brain circuits that fire when people eat.
One of the circuits relates to fluctuations in blood sugar levels, while the other one responds based on whether or not we think the food tastes nice.
Dana Small, a Yale University psychologist, told Popular Science: ‘The thing the brain really cares about are the calories.’
The team asked a group of volunteers to try a range of artificially flavoured drinks some of which contained calories and others of which were calorie-free.
Over a period of three weeks, they found that the group grew to prefer the one with calories even thought they could not taste the added calories.
The researchers looked at MRI scans of the volunteers’ brains as they tried the different drinks to try and establish why this happens.

The study found that people prefer high-calorie foods even if they do not know that they contain more calories because the brain detects the sugar content of it

The scans revealed that people’s brain reactions to the drinks were greatest when their blood sugar levels were highest – this brain reaction gives a sense of satisfaction from the food.
In contrast, the brain response was not linked to how much people enjoyed each of the drinks.
Therefore, Ms Small believes that some people who overeat may do so, not because they prefer high-calories foods, but because their blood sugar levels react more strongly than other people’s do.