About a month ago now (yikes, it’s been a while!), Sci handed over her diet to the judgment of the goddess. The goddess Isis. Since then, and since finding out that Sci ate roughly 2500 calories a day (or more, and running 5 miles a day doesn’t help THAT much), some major changes have been taking place. This little muffin dumped a lot of her carbs, and increased her protein, and more than both of those, she has upped her fruit and vegetable intake. This is less expensive than it sounds, thanks to the abundant loveliness of my local farmer’s market, but it still hasn’t been easy. Carbs taste GOOD. Cooking takes TIME. I never HAVE any time…and I like scones. A lot. Sigh.
Anyway, I have current reduced calorie intake to around 2000 calories a day (sometimes), and try not to eat too much pizza (most of the time). I am currently training for some ridiculous running distances, so exercise isn’t a problem, and I give myself weekends off to eat whatever I like. And I write it ALL down. Every day. Sci is in this for the long haul. I’m not looking to lose too much weight, rather, I am looking to improve my diet, eat more veggies and fruit and make these changes LAST.
And I have my good days and bad days. There was the Day of the Entire Pepperoni Pizza for dinner. Followed shortly thereafter by the Day of More Pizza and those Pretzel Chip Things that are So Delicious. But there are good days, too. Days when it doesn’t seem so bad to have fruit instead of fro-yo. And you know, marinated grilled chicken breasts are quite tasty!
But it’s all made Sci think a lot about appetite. Why we eat when we eat, and what we’re really eating for. Why that bowl of candy in advisor’s office is SO tempting even though I just had lunch. You know, that sort of thing.
And then I saw this study:
Piech, et al. “Neural correlates of appetite and hunger-related evaluative judgments” PLoS ONE, 2009.
Which raised far more questions than it answered.
Filed under: Behavioral Neuro | Tagged: amygdala, appetite, food choice, mOFC | 14 Comments »
