BREAK FREE FROM FOOD ADDICTION

Episode 264:
Show Notes  

In this week’s episode—the third part of our Obesity series—our lovely Dr Mary Barson and Dr Lucy Burns dive into the challenges of obesity and food addiction.

They explore how ultra-processed, hyperpalatable foods hijack the brain’s reward systems, making moderation incredibly difficult for many. This episode unpacks the powerful mix of evolutionary biology, modern food environments, and individual vulnerability.

By understanding these factors, we can reduce shame and stigma—and empower ourselves (and others) to seek support and create lasting change.

• Food Reward System & Brain Chemistry
• Humans are hardwired to seek out and desire foods that provide a strong dopamine response, especially sugary and carbohydrate-rich foods.
• This system was evolutionarily advantageous, helping our ancestors seek out and remember sources of high-energy food for survival.
• Modern hyperpalatable foods (ultra-processed, high in sugar and fat) are engineered to maximise this reward response, making them highly addictive.

• Food Industry Influence 

• The food industry uses sophisticated marketing and product design to exploit natural human cravings.
• Many of the same companies and strategies used in tobacco and gambling industries are applied to food, targeting vulnerable groups and fostering dependency.
• There is minimal regulation on the marketing and availability of ultra-processed foods, shifting blame and responsibility onto individuals.

• Challenges of Moderation
• The “everything in moderation” approach often fails for people sensitive to food rewards, as these foods are designed to override natural satiety signals.
• For many, it is easier to abstain completely than to moderate intake—a concept encapsulated by the phrase “one is too many and a thousand is never enough”.
• Emotional distress and lack of coping skills can drive people to use food for comfort, reinforcing the cycle of addiction.

• Three Bucket Analogy 

• Bucket 1: People with little to no interest in addictive foods or behaviors.
• Bucket 2: Heavy users who consume more than is healthy, but without severe consequences.
• Bucket 3: Individuals with significant consequences (e.g., obesity, diabetes, addiction) who struggle to stop despite negative outcomes.
• Most people overestimate their ability to control consumption and underestimate their vulnerability to addiction.
• Support and Solutions
• Breaking free from food addiction requires learning new skills, emotional regulation, and often external support.
• Dopamine detox (e.g., sugar resets) can help reset the brain’s reward system, but lasting change requires ongoing practice and support.
• Community and professional guidance are crucial for many people to maintain progress and avoid relapse.

Episode 264: 
Transcript

Dr Mary Barson (0:04) Hello, my lovely friends. I am Dr Mary Barson.

Dr Lucy Burns (0:09) And I'm Dr Lucy Burns. We are doctors and weight management and metabolic health experts.

Both (0:12) And this is the Real Health and Weight Loss podcast!

Dr Mary Barson (00:21) Hello, lovely friend, and welcome to this episode. Dr Mary here, joined by the wonderful, gorgeous, beautiful, blonde Dr Lucy Burns. How are you, my fabulous friend?

Dr Lucy Burns (00:36) Yes, really well, really well. I just this week did a menopause masterclass. I did two, actually—one for a group of health professionals and then one for anybody who, you know, the general public, anyone who wanted to come along. So, that was fun, and you know I love talking about menopause—amongst many other things that I love talking about. But yeah, no, that was great. So yeah, I’ve had a super week. Super.

Dr Mary Barson (01:01) Yes, very productive week. Absolutely. Indeed.

Dr Mary Barson (01:03) This topic that we're talking about today is the third part in our obesity series—our three-part obesity series. It is also a topic on which you have done some fabulous talks in the past, about how some foods just override our natural satiety and hunger signaling. Last week, we talked about leptin and leptin resistance, and how important it is to get your leptin levels back into a nice, normal range. But there are also some foods that just hijack all of our satiety signaling because of what they do to our brain chemistry—what they do to the reward signaling in our brain. So, beautiful Lucy, tell us a little bit more about this.

Dr Lucy Burns (01:54) Yes, absolutely. So, you know, we know that there are foods that are more desirable than other foods. You know, if you had to rank all your foods that you eat, you could rank them—if you really wanted to, if you had nothing else to do all day—into sort of desirability. And some of us have issues, I guess, around particular foods that are what I call over-desirable and therefore become very hard to regulate. And I think it's really interesting because there is, of course, there's a huge movement that we've spoken about before called the everything in moderation movement, that will tell you that you just need to eat—just eat a bit of it, don't have too much. And I don't know, look, I've tried that so many hundreds of times, and that never ever worked for me. That didn't feel like I was white-knuckling. In fact, for many times, I used to use the phrase—and still use it for many things—that one is too many and a thousand is never enough. And I remember thinking that a really great way to torture somebody would be to have, like, a jar of M&Ms on the bench or something, and just say to people, "You can just have one a day." And they still just have to look at it for the rest of the day. Or even, you know, a packet of Tim Tams—to use one of our favourites—or whatever it is. Pick your, you know, insert your food. And then the deal is that you can have one, but just one a day, and you just have to look at it for the rest of the day. And there are some people out there that can absolutely do that. But they're not the people that are listening to this podcast.

Dr Mary Barson (03:31) Probably not. Yes, yeah.

Dr Lucy Burns (03:33) No. And we spoke a lot about sugar addiction, or food addiction, or carb addiction—whichever hat you want to call it. But really, at the end of the day, it's largely ultra-processed food addiction. And it's really around this reward signaling and the dopamine effect. Dopamine is not the only hormone—it’s a neurotransmitter—but it's the largest. And the fact that food companies have really spent a long time drilling down into this and exploiting our human basic need for desire within our food, and have just taken that and created products that are like... on steroids. Desire on steroids.

Dr Mary Barson (04:20) Yep. We are hardwired to desire food. We're hardwired to get a neurochemical reward from food. And this, from an evolutionary viewpoint, was extremely helpful. You know, go out and find the berries, eat the berries, get that little fabulous dopamine rush of having found some nice, ripe berries—you’re more likely to repeat that behavior, to remember where the berries are, to go out and find more berries. And this gave a survival advantage to you and to your offspring. And we do get a dopamine rise from all food—from boiled eggs and broccoli. But we get much more of a dopamine rise from hyper-palatable foods. So we’re also hardwired to seek out sugary foods, to seek out high-carbohydrate foods. Because again, back in our wild ancestry, back when we were wild animals living in tribes, this was helpful behavior. Because if we found a whole lot of carbohydrate-rich food, like some honey or some ripe fruit, if we ate it all, then we would gain some weight. And this would be extremely helpful for our survival. So we really are designed to like sweet foods, to like carbohydrate-rich foods. And that’s all well and good—back when we were eating natural foods, in a natural environment, in natural seasons too. In natural seasons, that’s right. These foods were mostly only available in, like, in summer and autumn. They weren’t available in winter, and they weren’t really available in spring. So it was only just for a few months of the year where we would have this kind of glut of carbs, and then we wouldn’t have it again. And it was really helpful to pack on some weight moving into winter and spring.

Dr Lucy Burns (06:11) Yes. And now we have, you know, the refrigerator instead—which, you know, there is no... we don't have to hunt or gather. Our gathering is to, you know, press it now. Our gathering has got even less gathering. All we need now—literally, all we have to do—is press a few buttons on the phone and food arrives at the door. Like, it is the least amount of energy expenditure in order to gain food than ever before in the history—history of humanity.

Dr Mary Barson (06:40) So, you know, we've talked a lot about insulin resistance and leptin resistance, which is lockstep with insulin resistance. We're naturally primed to become insulin resistant when we have a lot of carbs, because it helps us gain weight. And this is a survival advantage. And that was great when they were only really available in, you know, a bit of summer and autumn. But now we live in a perpetual, you know, metaphorical summer and autumn, with these foods around all the time. And it's not helpful. And then enter, again, the food industry that wants us to buy their products and has twigged that if they make food extremely palatable, we're more likely to buy it. We're more likely to eat it. And we're also much more likely to not be able to control or regulate our consumption of it.

Dr Lucy Burns (07:31) Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is the thing—that is where people feel like it's their own fault. But it isn't. There is a massive, massive industry out there. Not just food. I mean, it's not just the food industry, but there are other industries. There's the gambling industry. There's the, you know, the mobile phone platforms. There are a whole heap of people that want us hooked on their product. So, you know, it depends on what they're selling. If smoking wasn't so highly regulated in Australia, there would still be tons of smoking ads. There's none of that. But we have very little regulation of ultra-processed food. In fact, I'd say we have almost none. And the whole marketing machine… I mean, a lot of people don't realise that the companies that own Big Tobacco are the same companies that own Big Food. And they use the same marketing—predatory marketing—tactics to get you to start eating their product. Because the more you eat, the more you want. The more you eat, the more you want. It's like never-ending. Again, if you had asked a smoker—if you said to a smoker, "Listen, I know you smoke 70 a day. What we're going to do is we're going to have the packet available for you. It's just going to sit there on the kitchen bench. But you can only have one every day." They would tear their eyes out. It is really, really hard for that to happen. But yet that's the everything in moderation catch cry—which honestly, there is evidence that GM Foods, which are the American conglomerate, they love that message. I mean, why wouldn't you?

Dr Mary Barson (09:11) Yeah, yeah. Because it puts the responsibility entirely on the individual. "It's not our fault that we have created this scientifically designed food that overrides your normal hunger and satiety signals, that is designed to be unstoppable, to give you a dopamine hit, to be addictive and for you to eat as much as you possibly... more than you reasonably should. We just made this food. If you can't moderate it, then it's up to you. Yeah, it's your fault." And that's great for the policymakers who feel like they don't need to take steps to limit the availability of hyper-palatable foods. When really, I think that is one of the most important things we could do for the health of our humans on this planet.

Dr Lucy Burns (09:52) Absolutely. And the people that I think are probably the most vulnerable to the, you know, the clutches of this—it's not just the marketing, it's the actual product. So, first of all, children, whose frontal lobes aren't developed, so they have really no sense of futuring. So, you know, if you have a bowl... and in fact, there was that fancy marshmallow test that was done a long time ago, where they had children and they gave them a marshmallow—put a marshmallow in front—and said, "Listen, you know, you can have this now. Or if you wait a certain amount of time, you'll get two." And the majority of kids—and the outcomes changed a little bit on the age of the children too—but the majority of kids just went, "Why would I wait? I'm having this one now. Tastes good." Yeah, because they don't have a concept of time, and they don't have the concept of future consequences. They just are looking for what's going on now. So children are particularly vulnerable. And then the idea being, of course, that—like smoking—get them young, keep them hooked. And suddenly you've got kids who are, you know, 16, and they've already developed the metabolic consequences. But we've also got people for whom, you know, they're looking at things that will soothe their emotions. So we know that emotional distress—and that can be in all sorts of emotions, whether that's sadness, loneliness, anger, frustration, guilt, shame—a lot of what people will term as being the kind of negative emotions are difficult to sit with and difficult to process. And so, rather than teaching, again, skills, you can shovel all that down with a, you know, Mars Bar and a bottle of Coke.

Dr Mary Barson (11:39) And that works. There's no doubt that it works in the short term. You can get emotional relief from eating these hyper-palatable foods, in much the way you can get emotional relief from all kinds of addictive behaviours. That is one of the reasons why addictive behaviours are addictive.

Dr Lucy Burns (11:57) Absolutely. And in fact, going on that relief then—once you've got into this cycle of perhaps consuming these foods for a while and you decide maybe you're going to stop—you feel really uncomfortable. You'll often have withdrawal symptoms, and your brain is going, "Oh my God, this feels terrible. I just want to eat a donut." And you eat the donut and you get relief from the withdrawal. And that sets up again that cycle of, "Well, I feel bad. Donuts make me feel better." And the brain remembers that. And so you again get sort of trapped into this addiction–withdrawal–relief, addiction–withdrawal–relief... everything in moderation. "Oh well, it's all right if I have a donut every now and then." And again, this is not at all to say, you know, you're a bad person. If you have a donut, you are not a bad person. But what you may be doing is... it's not actually helpful to have this way of thinking about your food.

Dr Mary Barson (12:56) And you've used this analogy before—the three-bucket analogy—which I think would be a great one to share now with food addiction and carbohydrate addiction. Not everybody who enjoys a donut necessarily has carbohydrate addiction. Could you expand on this, Lucy?

Dr Lucy Burns (13:11) Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, I think there's like three buckets. So the first bucket is the people that have almost no interest. So this can be anything. This can be food—the people that kind of walk past cake and it's like it's invisible to them. They don't even see it, or they have half a bit and they leave it behind. You're thinking, Who are you? And people will have this with alcohol. Some people aren't interested. They might have a glass of champagne once a year at a wedding or whatever. Or gambling—they might buy a raffle ticket. They never think to, wouldn’t even be interested in going to the pokies or dropping money on the ponies or any of that. So this happens with any aspect. Then you've got the kind of heavy users, which is really probably more of an environmental thing. So if we think about gambling, for example, you see young men these days where they've been marketed to and encouraged, and they're all doing the bet with mates because that's what the ads tell them to do. It's easy for them, and they're perhaps spending a reasonable amount of their income on this hobby or habit. But they're not destitute. They're not in jail. They're not stealing things. It's the same with food. We see people who might sit on the couch every night having ice cream and wine or eating a significant sort of more ultra-processed food than is helpful for them. But they haven't maybe got any consequences. Maybe they don't have type 2 diabetes, or they might be carrying some extra weight, but they haven't developed severe obesity or sleep apnea or any of that sort of stuff. And then we've got the third bucket, which is really when you have got now significant consequences and you've tried to stop and you can't. So this is now the alcoholic who's lost their family, and they're living in a park, and they've tried to stop and they can't. Or the person with type 2 diabetes who's still eating donuts—even though they know they're not good for them, they still can't stop. Or, you know, the kid whose friends have all stopped gambling and they now can't. And they've now, you know, all of their money is going into this. So they get to that really significant end point. And nobody actually wants to be in that bucket. If you ask anybody, they'll go, No, I'm not in that bucket. I'm in the middle bucket. And lots of you might be in the middle bucket. But we see a significant number of people who are in that third bucket. They've tried and they can't stop. And for them, that theory of one is too many and a thousand is never enough, that it is easier to have none than some, actually rings true. So this is not about people going, Oh, you can't restrict, because people will say that—Oh, restriction... It's not about restriction, it's about freedom. And many, many people find their life is easy once they just let go of it. They learn skills to develop, you know, manage their emotional regulation. They dial down the dopamine—so, you know, have a little dopamine detox. And this is what we will do with the Seven Day—we do the Seven Day Sugar Reset or the Five Day Sugar Reset, depending on how many days we're doing. We vary. Yeah, that's a dopamine detox, and it's a great first step, but it's not enough. You still need skills. You need skills to learn about How was this product serving you? What was it doing for you? Because you can't just stop and not replace. That's pulling the rug out from under people. And they need to have other skills to manage emotions and to manage withdrawal and to manage lapses. Because, you know, most people don't get it right the first time—they take a few goes. You know, science confirms all of that. So I think, coming back to what you said, Miss, I think it's really important for people who do have trouble regulating their food to understand that this is not an individual failing. You have been set up for this in a hostile environment with predators everywhere, taking advantage of your natural human vulnerabilities. So it's not your fault. But they're not coming to save you. They are not being regulated. They are not changing their behaviours while they're making bazillions of dollars. So you have to—because the only way for you to get out of this hole is by you taking ownership and agency of this and learning those skills and developing them and practicing them. And, you know, the skills are largely mindset management around that. And you maybe are lucky enough to be able to do that by yourself. But we find most people need support. They need a guide. They need someone to help them. They need someone to sort of hold them gently. And, you know, maybe sometimes keep them accountable when their brain is coming up with all the reasons why they don't want to do this. We're lucky enough to see this happen all the time.

Dr Mary Barson (18:15) We are in our beautiful communities—in our Momentum communities, in our 12 Week Mind Body Rebalance community, in our Real Life Medicine community. We do see this, and it is so incredibly rewarding to see people break free from this vicious cycle. 

Dr Lucy Burns (18:29) Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, my lovely friends, this is short—and I'm not even going to say sweet because we don't have to have sweet. It's just short. Short and short. Short, short and short. So, beautiful people, you know—if you need some help, we're here for you. Please reach out. Help is available. You know, it's what we do every day. It is our low-carb bread and butter. So let us know if you need anything at all, and we will be delighted to help you break free from the shackles of sugar.

Dr Mary Barson (19:03) Bye now.

Dr Lucy Burns (19:07) The information shared on the Real Health and Weight Loss Podcast, including show notes and links, provides general information only. It is not a substitute, nor is it intended to provide individualised medical advice, diagnosis or treatment, nor can it be construed as such. Please consult your doctor for any medical concerns.

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