Amy Nicholson
speaker
471 appearances
63 recordings
2 series
first heard Nov 2024
last heard Jun 2025
Amy Nicholson’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, I'll give you an example. Say you finished a beautiful dinner. You have eaten all the things. When the check comes in, they say, oh, did you guys want any dessert? And everyone at the table looks at each other and they're like, oh, I'm full, but...
kind of do want to look at the dessert menu you know it's like you kind of want to see what's on there that's cravings that's like you want that dopamine release in your brain that would come from chocolate or ice cream or you know some kind of uh dessert like item that Even though you're full, you're willing to order something that will give you that feeling.
Our brain will want something that creates a dopamine release. And it depends on so many different things, but in general, our brain loves the feeling of a dopamine release that comes from either food or enjoyment, like, you know, going to something that you really enjoy. Gambling and gaming kind of fits in that category where you get a release of dopamine by doing that activity.
Sometimes it's a matter of have I done it before and now my brain wants more of it. It's related to stress. It's related to what else has happened in your day. I'll give you this example. Dopamine in our brain is created this pathway, this cravings pathway is created to keep us going back for more. So if you've had a big dessert,
and you had a great dopamine explosion in your brain, what your brain will do is say, oh, I want that again. That's the dopamine pathway. It's pleasure mixed with motivation to try to get it again. And it's our It's a pathway that probably was created, we think, to keep us motivated to find more housing, to procreate, to find more food.
So body does not want you to give up once you've found a beautiful food source. It wants you to keep coming back home.
for more and so dopamine um the cravings pathway is a dopamine pathway that will keep you coming back for more and that's what gambling is that's what gaming is that's what desserts do for you that's what processed foods do and when you don't want to give in to those cravings you resist it and and resisting a craving can be very difficult and often it ends in failure
instead of resisting your cravings start retraining your cravings start retraining yourself so that you don't have to seek out that late night dessert that the alcohol the the drugs the gambling all of that so I talk about a five-step plan, but the number one thing is changing the way you eat.
So we now know that our gut bacteria is very responsible for sending signals to the brain about when we're full, when we need more, when we're craving. So getting that gut bacteria to feel full itself, to be happy, is the number one goal. Eating the right foods, foods that the gut bacteria love, will help you send signals to the brain that you're full.
Number one is fiber. So probiotic and prebiotic fiber. Number two is polyphenols. These are the brightly colored fruits and vegetables and spices, teas and chocolate. Number three is high amino acid foods. So these are your high protein foods that really signal to the brain that you're feeling satisfied and full. Number four is dopamine producing foods.
Like I mentioned, cravings pathway is due to your body wanting a dopamine release. And there are foods that you can be eating to raise your baseline levels of dopamine. Number five is omega-3 fatty acid rich foods. These are things like salmon and nuts. And these also trigger something called CCK, which is cholecystokinin, is a satiation hormone. And number six is glucosinolates.
Glucosinolates are a plant compound found in cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, cauliflower, kale, cabbage. They are full of this glucosinolate compound that tell the gut bacteria or feed the gut bacteria. And then in turn, the gut bacteria tell the body that we're full.
It can be sweet or it can be savory. Remember, there's people who love French fries and they would have those over any kind of sweet. So salt, sugar, and fat are the three things that people typically crave. And the thing is, Mike, is that food companies know this. Food companies know the science that we're talking about right now.
They know how to rewire our brains to have the most explosive dopamine release from their foods. So what they do is they figure out, okay, if we put this much salt, this much sugar, this much fat, we could actually create a food that would be so craveable that people would keep coming back for more.
And that's literally the problem with the food industry today is that they're creating foods that would never have this combination in nature. They're creating foods that are so craveable that whether we're hungry or not, we're going to go after those foods. And it's not just the food industry. The gaming industry, Instagram, gambling, porn, they all know how these pathways work.
Doritos, Pepsi and Coke, McDonald's Happy Meal. It's called Happy Meal for a reason. It's literally creating an explosion in your brain of dopamine and makes you feel happy in the moment. But remember, dopamine is very smart. It dissipates quickly and you feel uncomfortable. Right after you eat something that's got a huge dopamine release, you immediately feel happy.
a mix of pleasure and discomfort. Like, oh gosh, when am I going to get this again? Am I eating too much? Should I be eating this? It's like this pleasure mixed with discomfort. And our processed food industry is full of those. So McDonald's is a classic one that everybody kind of talks about, and Doritos. All the soda companies really work on this a lot.
Absolutely not. It's actually the opposite. So when you understand how cravings pathways work is that the more you do it, the more you reinforce that pathway. And so it's just like alcohol, exactly the same pathway. You have a drink or you have a lot of drinks. And the next day you say to yourself, well, I feel like having a drink. And I feel like if I just have one, Um, it's going to be fine.
I'll not have that craving anymore. And you know, we know now the biology behind it, you have one drink and it kind of reinforces that pathway to have want more of that. And that's exactly the same thing with processed foods. If you have that Snickers bar today, just to, just to give into your cravings. What it does is it reinforces the pathway and it makes you want more of the Snickers.
And then tomorrow, you're probably going to want a Snickers and a half. And this is very true. If you ever know anyone who loves Starbucks or those frappuccino type drinks, you know, in the beginning, they taste really sweet, and you can only have a little bit. But then over time, you start craving it more and more, you can have a tall and then you have a grande, then you have a venti.
Showing 261–280 of 471 · page 14 of 24
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