In this week’s group meeting, we had the pleasure of talking to Amy Berger, MS, CNS, NTP. Amy is a nutrition specialist and author of The Alzheimer’s Antidote, The Stall Slayer, and co-author of End Your Carb Confusion. Her blog and YouTube videos are wealth of information.

Dr. Tro and health coaches Amy Eiges and Brian Wiley continued this month’s theme of food addiction.

Discussion:

• Amy B. began by acknowledging that she knows sugar and food addiction are real. In her clinical experience, she has seen how people that suffer from certain diseases or conditions that could improve with dietary change refuse to change eating habits despite their health issues.
• What most intuitive eating advocates don’t talk about is that it is not an eating disorder if one chooses not to eat certain foods that make them feel bad or that they have trouble moderating. Not everybody can eat everything. For some of us, moderation does not exist, or we have health concerns that preclude us from eating certain foods.
• Amy E. discussed why intuitive eating did not work for her while her appetite and cravings were highjacked by a sugar and carbs. Now that she is eating low carb she uses many of the tools she learned from eating intuitively — being aware of her hunger and the foods that are satiating.
• Brian and Amy E. talked about other failed weight-loss attempts and that they only had to start low carb/keto once.
• Dr. Tro explained how post-blood sugar drops are what cause us to seek out foods a few hours after eating. Stabilizing blood glucose and building ketones with carb restriction helps eliminate these spikes, control your hunger and the compulsion to eat. He went on to explain that even with a stable blood sugar there are other things that drive us to eat that need to be managed. Amy E. mentioned that for many of us this is where the long-term weight management work lies. 
• Stress is a major factor to late-night eating and snacking throughout the day — once the stress is lessened we seek out a reward. Some strategies to curtail stress-eating: buy yourself some time and do something that distracts you from the food (meditate, go for a walk, remove yourself from the kitchen). Also, have some crunchy vegetables on hand to eat if stress eating starts to take over. 
• Amy B. said that Alzheimer’s is also referred to as type 3 diabetes. If you’re taking in too much glucose and your body is not processing it properly it can affect the brain as we age. She also said that things like B-12 levels, poor sleep and statin use can impact brain health.