NOTE – Do NOT do this – especially at 40 plus.
Ultra processed foods are appearing on our shelves and in our shopping baskets more and more. UPFs are processed foods that have gone through a high level of processing with chemicals, sugars and fats added – for example – chemical based chocolate perfume, so you get the sensory hit of the chocolate smell which triggers your dopamine reward centre, even though the food has no actual chocolate.
There’s now a stack of research showing that consumptions of UPFs are linked to obesity. Firstly studies have shown that when we eat UPFs we store more of the energy from them as body fat, secondly, because our hormones don’t recognise them as natural food, our normal digestive hormonal response is over ridden, meaning we over eat. Thirdly, because of the sugar, they’re highly addictive, then there’s the other chemical additives. They also tend to be high in calories.
And yes, this does include many of the meat substitute “foods”, take a look at the ingredients label and you’ll see a chemistry set on there. So if you’re eating these for ethical reasons, no issue, but if you’re eating them because you think they’re healthier, you’re wrong.
Aside from the calories, sugar, fat, chemicals and the overriding of our normal hormonal response to eating, MRI scans show that consumption of UPFs actually rewire the reward centre of the brain making us crave more of them.
Scans 3 months after cessation of consumption show the increased connections were still there, driving cravings, these foods actually rewire your brain to be less healthy!
In our 40s an upwards we’re already dealing with changes in our hunger hormones, increased insulin resistance, stress, and changes to our sex hormones making weight gain more likely – eating these types of food is going to accelerate that process, which we absolutely don’t want.
We’ve been talking about this for years and helping our clients become empowered with the kind of nutritional knowledge they need to work in line with their changing hormones, to avoid making mistakes like UFPs and make achieving and sustaining results easy.
Last month we launched a 21 Day Optimising Hormones & Resetting Metabolism course that covers all this in detail and the first clients through it have had amazing results:
- more energy
- increased muscle tone
- lowered body fat
- drop in weight of 6lbs plus in just a few days
- 2.5 inches off the waist!
- shift in mood to feeling more positive about life
Want to know more? Give me a shout.