Comments on: Women’s Brains and Food Cravings

By: phyllis shapiro

phyllis shapiro — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:43:22 +0000

Just found your website and am impressed with your advice. I have lived and eaten this way for most of my life (most of the discoveries made by just listening to my body message). I am now 65 and weigh within 8 lbs of my high school (cheer leading)weight. As a practitioner of Oriental Medicine in NYC for over 15 years, I believe that any “medication” (even my herbal formulas) are best absorbed if taken as a liquid – not pill or capsule. Do you know of a good Omega 3 oil that is not encapsulated? Thanks. Phyllis

By: phyllis shapiro

phyllis shapiro — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:41:50 +0000

Ups, spelled my own name wrong on the comment …. can this be corrected? Phyllis Shapiro phyllisshapiro.com

By: phyllis shapirio

phyllis shapirio — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 14:39:48 +0000

Just found your website and am impressed with your advice. I have lived and eaten this way for most of my life (most of the discoveries made by just listening to my body message). I am now 65 and weigh within 8 lbs of my high school (cheer leading)weight. As a practitioner of Oriental Medicine, I believe that any “medication” (even my herbal formulas) are best absorbed if taken as a liquid – not pill or capsule. Do you know of a good Omega 3 oil that is not encapsulated? Thanks. Phyllis

COMMENT from MDE: There are some liquid gels, such as Omega Brite, but that’s still technically a ‘capsule’ of sorts. And then there’s fish oil itself, which is liquid, and Nordic Naturals makes a omega-3 product for children.

By: Women Brains and Food Cravings Mary Dan Eades M D | Menopause Relief

Women Brains and Food Cravings Mary Dan Eades M D | Menopause Relief — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 00:05:01 +0000

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By: Lizi

Lizi — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 18:21:28 +0000

Honestly, if i had a theory, I would say that of course we have polychronistic brains, but it all boils down to willpower with females. We can be in labor and concentrate on having a child, the end result. We can see food, be hungry, but remind ourselves of our diet and resist the temptation, all while smiling, saying, “Oh, I’m not hungry,” and swallowing our drool. I also think this carries into the anorexia/bulemia issue, where women can make themselves not eat by sheer will, or throw up something they really enjoyed. (However, women usually yo-yo with this type of thing, whereas men end up with worse problems because they literally cannot stop). Anyhow, the blog had me thinking, and those are my two cents.

By: Edith

Edith — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 20:28:37 +0000

I just found this website and am impressed with the information available. This article about women and cravings has made me laugh a rather bitter laugh. It seems to me that women in Western culture might have more problems with cravings simply because women have for so long bought into the idea that you must be thin to be beautiful, and to be thin you must not eat. So a lot of women are basically starving all the time. A number of years ago, when I was making an effort to avoid junk food and get lots of protein and veggies, I ate pretty much what I wanted within those limits and was surprised one day when someone brought a big cake to work–and I (normally a super carboholic) had ZERO craving for cake. It was my first clue that EATING real food and NOT WORRYING about calories might be the way to go to avoid cravings and lose weight. I’m sure the brain scans of women who eat and eat well (that is, low-carb in some way) would tell a different story than the one reported in this article.

By: Carrie

Carrie — Tue, 10 Feb 2009 03:55:04 +0000

I immediately wondered if the difference was between being primarily a hunter vs. primarily a gatherer. If men primarily hunted, their prey tended to go crashing through the underbrush or in other ways make itself obvious. If women primarily gathered, they’d need to be able to remember that the tree by that bend in the river had tubers growing under it that became edible in the fall or that berries grew along that swamp over the next rise in the early summer. Remembering the location of food and its current/future state of availability would be an important survival skill for women.

By: Elle

Elle — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 14:33:36 +0000

Thanks, Dr. Mary Dan.

I want to point out, in case it isn’t obvious, that I have never viewed LC as a “diet” in the sense that I intended to use it for weight loss, and then go back to “regular” eating.

Each and every single time I’ve done it, it’s been with the commitment that “this it *it.*” This is my new way of eating from here on out.

I feel like if I could figure out what causes me to say “screw it” after a year or so, it would be a big help. Now that I know I have ADD and how we tend to approach things (all or nothing, hyperfocus or off the radar, with nothing in between), that explains some of it, at least.

COMMENT from MD EADES: If it helps, you’re not alone

By: Mike Delta

Mike Delta — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 22:58:34 +0000

Please publish your recipes for gazpacho and ice cream. Both were referenced recently in Dr. Mike’s blog.

COMMENT from MD EADES: I’ll put the gazpacho up today. There’s already an ice cream recipe in the archives of my blog, I think, so search ice cream and see what you get. If there’s not, I’ll put it up soon.

By: Karen J

Karen J — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 16:53:11 +0000

Hi Doc,

The comment you wrote to Elle was beautiful, inspirational, and spot-on. I’m going to print that out and read it whenever I feel the need.
I’ve never thought of myself as a recovering addict, but I suppose that all of us that are here reading your blog are.
I think another thing that makes it so hard is that carbs are constantly pushed on us from everywhere. The Gov’t, restaurants, schools, fairs, loved ones, the circus- they are truly ubiquitous.
Nobody would ever think to offer a drink to a recovering alcholic; but it’s perfectly acceptable to offer cake to a carb addict.

COMMENT from MD EADES: I totally agree and have said many times that ‘white powders’ are addictive, whether they’re heroin and cocaine or sugar and flour. The difference is–just as you point out– that it’s a whole lot easier to kick alcohol and drugs than carbs, because no decent person would ever offer a bag of coke to a recovering junkie or a drink to a recovering alcoholic, but will put on the full court press to get someone to indulge in ‘just a bite’ ‘just this once’ without ever dreaming of what that could mean to the ‘sobriety’ of a recovering sugar junkie, and will keep insisting even when the junkie tells them politely ‘no’.