Sex, Drugs, Rock and Roll, and Food

What do sex, drugs, rock and roll, and food have in common?

They all stimulate the reward center of your brain, of your body, of you.

As such, sex and rock and roll are crucial to overcoming “emotional eating” and establishing a harmonious—and decidedly un-drug-like—relationship with food.

You know what I mean by a drug-like relationship with food. You’re bored, lonely, stressed, and/or tired, and you open a bag of potato chips. You have one, then 10, then 20—before you know it, you’re not too far from finishing the bag. And you weren’t even hungry. It’s like you were overtaken by a demon.

You try to stop yourself with willpower—but it feels like you’re trying to drain Lake Erie with a spoon.

This is your reward center doing its thing. Getting you to do something—anything—that’ll boost your levels of dopamine and other reward chemicals—now.

On one hand, you’re lucky your drug of choice is potato chips or cookies or ice cream; they’ll numb your pain—and they won’t kill you nearly as fast as other drugs.

On the other hand, you know as well as I do what consumption of junk food does to your risk of type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, cancer, dementia, chronic neuromusculosketetal pain, anxiety, depression, and related ailments.

And you know as well as I do eating potato chips is doing nothing to address the boredom, loneliness, stress, and/or fatigue that’s driving this whole thing.

How can you get to the bottom of this?

With a whole lot of sex and rock and roll!

Not necessarily literally.

In this analogy, sex is a proxy for fulfilling relationships and rock and roll is a proxy for having a blast.

Imagine doing something you absolutely love with people you absolutely love. Imagine it with all of your senses as vividly as you can. Imagine having the time of your life. Imagine feeling completely loved.

Are you craving potato chips?

Probably not.

Because you’ve got everything you need.

Cravings for potato chips are trying to tell you something. They’re trying to tell you to check in with yourself. They’re trying to get you to ask yourself:

What could I do right now to become un-bored, un-lonely, un-stressed, and/or un-tired?

Stated positively, they’re trying to get you to ask yourself:

What could I do right now that would be exciting, connecting/bonding, relaxing, and/or energizing?

Stated in a memorable way you can use the next time potato chips are calling you:

How can I get myself some sex and rock and roll right now?

Assertively answer these questions with some action on your behalf to meet your needs and those pesky potato chips will lose any and all power they have over you.

You’ve got this, you rockstar you!

Author’s note: I put “emotional eating” in quotes because it doesn’t accurately describe the phenomenon. First, it implies irrationality, and the phenomenon actually makes perfect sense. Second, it disregards the reality of body-heart-mind unity. Yes, “emotional eating” is “emotional” since it involves emotions. It’s also “mental” since it involves thoughts and “physical” since it involves hormones, reward chemicals, and other overtly “physical” substances and processes.

About Jason Gootman
Jason Gootman is a Mayo Clinic Certified Wellness Coach and National Board Certified Health and Wellness Coach as well as a certified nutritionist and certified exercise physiologist. Jason helps people reverse and prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and other ailments with evidence-based approaches to nutrition, exercise, stress reduction, holistic wellness, and, most importantly, lasting behavior improvement and positive habit formation. As part of this work, Jason often helps people lose weight and keep it off, in part by helping them overcome the common challenges of yo-yo dieting and emotional eating. Jason helps people go from knowing what to do and having good intentions to consistently taking great care of themselves in ways that help them add years to their lives and life to their years.