Do You Suffer from Junk Food Hangovers?
Are you currently on a diet? If you are, then this article is for you! If you are not dieting right now, you probably will be at some point in the near future, because I don’t think it is humanly possible for a woman to go too long without at least thinking about going on a diet. We can always find something about ourselves that we don’t like and we usually think that dieting will fix the problem. No wonder the men have given up trying to understand how our brains work!
All right, its time for a moment of truth: raise your ice cream spoon in the air if you’ve ever broken a diet to binge on junk food? Don’t worry, this is a judge free zone – you can be honest with your fellow diet cheaters! If you are a fellow binge cheater, you may want to put down your Doritos and pay close attention to the results of a new study about the effects of a high fat diet !
Researchers from Cambridge University in the United Kingdom have linked short term memory lapse and decreased exercising ability to what they are calling a “junk food hangover.” Apparently when we go all out and binge on a range of high fat foods for a few days, it will not only break our diet, but it will slow us down both physically and mentally as well.
Scientists are still unsure about the long term effects on memory loss. Further studies need to be done on that one, but for now they do know for sure that these high fat binges do have a definite effect on short term memory loss. Hmmm, thinking back to my last shameful episode when I consumed more ice cream than I even want to think about, I seem to remember slowing down quite a bit… (They should NEVER put the good ice cream on sale for under $3! Never!)
The test was conducted on a group lab rats, and when fed a diet where they got 55 percent of their daily calories from fat, the rats were a lot less efficient both physically and mentally within just a few days of going on the diet. Hopefully this new information will be enough to stop you (and me!) the next time you feel like breaking your diet with a vengeance. If you force yourself to read the nutrition labels before you dig in, this move may stop you in your tracks. It’s harder to continue doing something that is bad for you when you know exactly how bad it really is!
Better yet, take a look at all of your favorite cheating foods and write down the calorie, carb and fat amounts in the serving that you would usually have, and post this info somewhere that you’ll be sure to see it before you fall into temptation. This could be the fridge, inside a cupboard door or even in your car, if you eat a lot of fast foods.
