Why Diets Fail (Because You're Addicted to Sugar) (2 page)

The crux of this book is this: Diets fail for a very simple reason. The key to losing weight may be to eliminate excess calories, which we undoubtedly get in the form of added sugars and excessive amounts of other carbohydrates in our diet. But if you are psychologically and chemically dependent on these types of foods, your “addiction” may lead you into a vicious cycle of overeating, withdrawal, and craving for these foods, which can derail your attempts
to cut back on intake and lose weight, and ultimately lead to continued overeating and weight gain.

How Did This Book Come to Be?

Before we get into the details of how and why foods, and sugars in particular, can be addictive—and how you can overcome this addiction—we would like to tell you the story of how this book came to be. It is quite an interesting story, as we are two people on different coasts, in different careers, on very different life paths, who have come together through a series of events that were prompted by our mutual interest in trying to understand why controlling the intake of certain foods can be so difficult for some individuals.

JOHN’S STORY

I never thought I would write a diet book. But last year, I realized my weight had ballooned up to 252 pounds, which by medical standards meant that, at 6′2″, I was not only overweight but borderline obese.

I always thought I carried my weight rather well. I rationalized by telling myself that I was just big-boned and had good, strong legs. I knew I wasn’t thin, but I didn’t realize how fat I had become. When I looked at pictures, I didn’t recognize myself. Photos for my driver’s license and passport didn’t look like me but rather some inflated version of me, like I was a giant balloon character floating along in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

Then I discovered Gary Taubes and a piece he wrote for the
New York Times Magazine
entitled “Is Sugar Toxic?”
³
That led me to his excellent book
Why We Get Fat: And What to Do About It
.
⁴
I learned that consuming excess amounts of sugars and starches is fattening and toxic. The more I read and thought about it, the more I began to wonder whether sugar could be addictive. Addiction is something I am familiar with. I have spent much of my adult life researching and trying to figure out the causes of addiction, because I have had a problem with alcohol over the years. If sugar and starches are also addictive and cause people to get fat, this is something that I’m interested in.

So, I decided to stop eating sugar and most fast-digesting starches. And I can tell you, it was not easy, but the results I saw are just short of amazing. The fact that most diet books make similar claims of incredible outcomes cheapens what I am about to tell you, because what I experienced after cutting out sugar was truly life changing. Six months after adopting this sugar-free way of eating, I had lost 52 pounds. I went from 252 pounds to 200 pounds. But that’s not the full story. Three months into my experiment, I no longer felt lousy every day. I really started feeling good for the first time that I could remember. I mean really good. I mean jumping out of bed in the morning before the alarm clock rang with no need for caffeine or other stimulants. I mean wanting to exercise and play sports not because I was supposed to but rather because I actually enjoyed it. Mostly, I must admit vainly, I took great pleasure in knowing that my body more resembled the tight-muscled look it had when I was a national champion rower at Cornell in 1977 than the bulbous, fatty blob it had become by the time I was fifty-seven.

Because I wasn’t eating carbs or sugar, I necessarily had to eat more protein, and eating protein and engaging in regular exercise are both great for adding muscle and definition to your body. I had lost enormous amounts of fat throughout my body—especially in my stomach, chest, and buttocks area—but I was also simultaneously adding muscle weight. And since muscle weighs more than the same volume of fat, my weight loss felt even more meaningful: the
numbers on the scale kept going down despite adding dense muscle to my body. I went from a 39-inch pant size to a 35-inch pant size. Four inches may not sound like a huge reduction to you, but consider that now, with a 35-inch waist, I am only five inches away from the smallest pant size Costco even carries anymore. And this is from someone who is 6’2” tall.

This diet did something else rather amazing for me. It made me feel so good about myself that it changed the way I interacted with people. Before, I was constantly going through many mini withdrawals throughout the day whenever I didn’t have my sugar fix, and with these mini withdrawals came a level of anxiety that led me to be short-tempered, with little patience for others. Bottom line, I wasn’t always fun to be around. Now, I find myself smiling as I walk down the street. I find pleasure in simple things. I love to catch a beautiful wave to surf or to see a seal or dolphin pop up next to me in the water just to say hello. I enjoy making a simple pass in soccer that allows an open teammate to score a goal. I know it sounds mushy and trite, but that is the degree of change that I’ve felt in my personal life with this diet plan. Yes, losing weight is part of it, along with the return of self-esteem that comes from being more fit, but the big difference is eliminating a substance from my system that can be so addictive that I may constantly be suffering these mini withdrawals between doses.

I can certainly attest to sugar’s addictiveness. When I quit eating sugar and starches, I went through a nasty withdrawal period that lasted two to three weeks with symptoms that were very similar to the flu. I had headaches, anxiety, nausea, muscle aches and pains, and even nightmares. After that, I had a lingering feeling of discomfort that lasted two to three months. I wasn’t in pain, so to speak; these symptoms resided more in my mind than in my body. But it wasn’t necessarily fun either. One of the traits that addictive substances and addictive behaviors have in common is that they can
both stimulate the brain to overproduce certain neurochemicals, which can lead to feelings of euphoria. Once you stop consuming an addictive substance like sugar (or nicotine or alcohol), not only does the brain quit overproducing these chemicals, but it is also not uncommon for the brain to then underproduce them, thus leading to the opposite of euphoria: depression. But, actually, all of this pain and melancholy was a good sign. It meant that my body was cleansing itself, and I eventually realized that the negative effects would be temporary. Like most people, I can put up with slight amounts of discomfort as long as I know I will not be subjected to them permanently and that there is a purpose to the pain that makes it worth enduring.

It took me approximately six months to realize what I had accomplished. It wasn’t just the weight loss. What became most incredible over time was that, unlike other diets, this change in my life is permanent and I feel little risk that I will relapse and resume my old habits. It is this sense of permanence, especially in light of all my prior failed attempts to lose weight, that most impressed me and made me realize that this very low-sugar and low-starch diet was truly extraordinary and unique. I felt as if I were sitting on a magic cure. In the United States, millions of adults are overweight or obese. What was I to do with my newfound knowledge?

Well, even though I am not a nutritionist or an addiction expert, it turns out I am an author, so I wanted to write a book to tell others about what I had discovered. I have spent twenty years of my adult life contemplating and writing about some very big ideas in the areas of finance, global economics, and even the promotion of democracy and freedom. I have been lucky enough to write books and research articles that have been helpful in understanding how our global economy operates and the dangers we face when we allow too much power to reside in the hands of a few. But I believe that nothing I have worked on to this point is as important as the
concepts presented in this book. Sure, we would all like to lose weight and be fitter, but the importance of the approach in this book is in how it will help you reawaken your passion for life and feel reconnected with friends and family once the adverse consequences of consuming sugar are eliminated. Though I wanted to write this book, I knew, however, that I would need help from someone who has expertise in the areas of food intake, nutrition, and addiction. Determined, I decided to contact the top addiction experts in the country to see if my ideas and experience were backed by current science and research. That is how I came to learn of Dr. Avena’s work in nutrition and addiction.

Dr. Avena has made a career of studying why people like to eat, or not eat, food. She studies the psychological foundations and brain mechanisms that lead people to make decisions about how much,
and what type of, food to eat. She had been doing important studies to answer a burning question: Could it be that so many people are overweight or obese because they are “addicted” to foods like sugars? So, I wrote a short email to her asking if she thought my diet ideas were novel and valid. To my delight, she responded with one of the most incredible emails I have received in my lifetime.

Dr. Avena’s Research

As a scientist and research psychologist, I study and try to understand the microscopic details of the neurotransmitters and brain receptors involved in the process of eating. Understanding the minute chemical changes in the brain that explain why people like certain foods, and sometimes choose to eat them in excess, has clear implications for obesity and some eating disorders, as well as for many of the people out there who are just trying to lose weight.

In recent years, the obesity epidemic has become one of the most important problems faced by our society. Because of this, many researchers are working diligently to figure out why and how so many people are becoming overweight or obese. I have taken a new approach to studying obesity by blending the disciplines of neuroscience, psychology, nutrition, and addiction. Studies from my laboratory and others suggest that overeating and obesity can produce behaviors and changes in the brain that look like a drug addiction. But we aren’t addicted to drugs; we are addicted to high-calorie, high-sugar foods.

First, she said there was nothing in my conjectures about sugar’s addictiveness that was counter to any research she knew of. Second, she told me about all of the different ways that she has been testing the hypothesis that sugar could be addictive in the lab. Her research group has conducted a series of experiments with lab rats, and the results suggested that when rats voluntarily ate excessive amounts of sugars, they began, in many ways, to resemble addicts. The idea that certain foods might be addictive was, and still is, a new area of scientific exploration, and one that might hold the answers to a lot of unanswered questions.

Here was someone I had never met who had come to some of the same conclusions that I had, not through personal experience like myself, but through rigorous scientific research in the lab. It was incredibly validating and reassuring to hear that my experience was not an anomaly, and that there is a whole line of scientific research focused on understanding why and how overeating sugars could cause weight gain and promote addiction.

The end result was that Dr. Avena and I decided to combine our unique experiences with the addictive nature of sugars and coauthor this book. I jumped at the chance to work with her, and what a great experience this collaboration has been for me. But there is a huge benefit to you, the reader, from our collaboration as well.

Why You Need to Read
This
“Diet” Book

These days, diet books are a dime a dozen, but few books combine the lived experience of someone who has implemented that diet and seen amazing results with the scientific research that supports and explains why the eating plan works. In
Why Diets Fail
, you gain all the latest scientific knowledge and expertise from Dr. Avena, who has a PhD in psychology and neuroscience and is an expert in the fields of addiction, nutrition, and obesity, informed by insights from John, who has lived through this experience.