Constant Cravers And Intermittent Fasting? A Big Lie?

I’m a little behind some of you with looking at the latest BBC Programme about finding a personalised diet programme with all the World Famous Obesity Experts. Sorry Professor Tanya by the way, with respect you are an erudite clinical psychologist but a world famous obesity expert?  However….

I still want to know why they have put constant cravers (who may be Leptin Insensitive) on the Intermittent Fasting Diet. Leptin is a protein which tells our brain to stop looking for food when our fat cells are expanding. By the way. So constant cravers are looking at food all the time, in shops, with other people eating and so on. This is like the behaviour of drug addicts. Perhaps there is something wrong with the reward centres of the brain as well.  We call this Reward Deficiency Syndrome. If this is the problem, then intermittent fasting might make their preoccupations worse.

I have plenty of research which shows that intermittent fasting in some people can ADD to their desire for food, increase their thinking about food, make them search out food and eating cues in their environments. So what’s the explanation for this choice of diet?

The programme shows that there are certain basics which need to be handled in obesity treatment no matter what is wrong with your genes and your hormones. This is like eating slowly and mindfully, not in front of the TV which increases appetite by the way…. not boot-camping people in exercise programmes which they don’t enjoy, building flexibility and teaching people how to solve day to day problems and deal with irritations without needing to eat;  managing cravings, dealing with lapses & so on & so on.

And some of the participants are getting “CBT” although CBT on its own doesn’t have a good success rate for long term success. For one thing CBT lacks a spiritual dimension which inspires people to change and CBT doesn’t address the need to teach people how to increase their willpower. Yes, yes, yes it can be done.

You might like to see my own ideas on how to work with constant cravers on my blog Deanne talks to save me having to write it all again here. Meanwhile enjoy the programme, talk about it by all means, but the idea that there is a DIET alone that helps an overweight person to lose weight and keep it off is  BIG FAT LIE.