1) The brain is hardwired for survival and operates largely on autopilot through established neural pathways. Diets trigger fear responses that can shut down decision-making and sabotage change efforts. 2) Stress from dieting impacts the brain in ways that make weight loss difficult such as increased cortisol, impaired memory and decision making. Diets also lack nutrients needed to produce neurotransmitters. 3) Making lasting changes requires retraining the brain by developing new habits through mindfulness, increasing self-care, finding intrinsic motivation, and surrounding oneself with a community of support. Decreasing stress through managing time and finding safe spaces also helps.

1. Neuroscience
of Change
Why We Fall Off Our
Diets
Dr. Kari Anderson

2. Presented By
Green Mountain at Fox Run
offering women an alternative to dieting since 1973
• Kari Anderson DBH, CEDS
• Binge Eating Specialist

3. Outline
• The Brain
• The Problem with Diets
• The Problem with Change
• The Healing Pathway

4. The Brain…

5. Picture of snowcped mountain

6. Path of Least Resistance
• It’s easier to do what you’ve
always done
• We are hard wired for ease of
survival
• Most of us operate on
automatic pilot

7. The Brain
• Chemical messengers: “neurotransmitters”
• Autopilot mechanism: “neuropathways”
• Adapts and reorganizes: “neuroplasticity”

8. Brain’s Frontal Lobes
• Executive functioning
• Organizing and prioritizing
• Decision making
• Managerial tasks

9. Brain’s Deep Centers
• Survival center
• Breathing and heart rate
• Sleep, hunger, sexual desire
• Crude emotions: FEAR

10. Fear Stimulates
• Black and white thinking
• Forgets big picture goals and values
• Inability to change plans
• Sabotage, denial, avoidance

11. “Brain Overload”
Attention Deficit Trait (ADT)
• Distractibility
• Inner frenzy
• Impatience

12. Stress and the Brain
• Cortisol (stress hormone)
o Increased fear response
o Impaired memory
o Impaired decision making
o Decreased attention

13. The Problem with Diets
• Stress
• Zombies

14. Diets and Stress
• Less food for coping
o Deer in headlights, now what?
• Less food, less often
o Low blood sugar, can’t think, tired
o Triggers fear of famine, body resists
• Lack nutritional balance
o Missing nutrients to produce neurotransmitters

15. Stress, Cortisol and Weight
• Interferes with Healthy Weights
• Stores Fat for Survival

16. Focus on Weight Loss
You can directly change your
thinking and behavior, but not
the number on the scale.

17. Stress and Fear
• Our brains are wired for
survival, ANY perceived
threat is met with resistance
• Fear shuts down our ability
to think, we react out of
impulse

18. Diets
• Perceived fear of deprivation
• Activates the fear of not getting enough
• Emotional, not rational

19. • The more isolated we are, the
more stressed out we become
• Sense of human connection
makes executive function hum
• Fostering connection reduces
fear and promotes brain power
Isolation

20. Emotional Eating
• Everyone eats emotionally once
in a while; it is a part of normal
eating
• Trying to manage stress, but
creates more stress
• Fear creates perfectionism,
creates a binge mentality

21. Zombie Syndrome
• Just tell me what to do
• Point me in the right direction
• I don’t want to have to think.
• Those with eating disorders
have “low self-directedness”

22. Diets
• Easy in beginning because they take little
thought, but get harder and harder
because we lose our ability to fight
against our default setting.
• Changing the way we think is hard in the
beginning but gets easier and easier
because we are changing our default
setting.

23. Evenings and Night Eating
• Of course!
• Tired, shifting out of executive
function and into automatic pilot
• Most vulnerable time
• Transition with mindfulness
• Must be prepared with distraction,
boundaries and new routine

24. Diet Cycle

25. The Problem with Change
Requires retraining the brain (habits)
Paying attention (cues)
Create anticipation (mental prep)
Reward (pleasure)
Practice (habituation)

26. Habit
Cue Behavior Reward

27. Know Your Cues
• Triggers, Triggers, Triggers

28. Cravings
• So powerful that our
brain clings to them
to the exclusion of
common sense

29. Must Believe
• HOPE is an essential
ingredient
• Mental preparation, focus
• Create anticipation
• Visualize in vivid detail “as if”

30. Self Compassion
• Disengages the fear
response
• Creates a positive
environment for change

31. New Behaviors; Same Reward
• Intentional behavior choices
• Change up the routine

32. Reward
• Pleasure, joy
• My favorite things
• Engage memory
with all senses

33. Practice
• Must habituate in order to create new
“Pathway”
• Patience
• Live in the present, mindfully

34. The Healing Pathway
• Decrease stress
• Increase emotional resilience
• Mindfulness
• Essential self care
• Motivation from within
• Community of hope

35. Decrease Stress
• Decrease distractions
o Turn off bells and whistles
• Manage time
o Time for thinking and planning, time to just be
• Create safe spaces
o Decrease clutter, sensory experience

36. Increase Emotional Resilience
• Foster positive emotions and manage
negative emotions
o May involve a good therapist
• Frequent connection with people you like
o Face to face validation
• Creating meaning
o Recognizing spiritual hungers and connections

37. Mindfulness
The ability to be aware of your
thoughts, emotions, physical
sensations, and actions in the
present moment without
judging or criticizing yourself or
your experience.
~ Jon Kabat-Zinn

38. Mindfulness
• Mindfulness-based approaches
provide individuals with a
heightened ability to to simply
observe feelings and experiences
and take charge of decisions,
disengaging automatic reactivity.
• It cultivates a wiser and more
balanced relationship with your
selves, your eating, and your body

39. Mindfulness
• Mindfulness disengages fear and
anxiety by staying present
• It cultivates an environment of
self-compassion by disengaging
judgment; this allows a safe
environment to change

40. Mindfulness
• Allows us to fully embrace a new
behavior with a sensory reward
therefore reinforcing a new
neuropathway

41. Essential Self Care
• Sleep and rest
• Predictable, nourishing
and mindful eating
• Joyful movement and
physical activity
• Finding a safe, supportive
environment to heal
• Coping strategies, rewards
Essential
Self
Care

42. Whole Life Management
• Engineering one’s environment, emotional
and physical health
Environment
Emotional
Health
Physical
Health

43. Decrease Stress (Cortisol)
• Balance blood sugar
• Get enough rest and sleep
• Exercise (with pleasure)
• Mindful meditation (stress-relieving mental
exercises)
• Find safe people
• Warning: drugs and alcohol

44. Pause Button
• Create space without stress
• Notice and intentionally choose
• Meditate on positive outcomes
• Take it in with senses to seal the memory

45. Internal Focus
• Create calm and safety
• Self compassion, without criticism
• Meditate on what you want to create
• Visual pictures with sensory stimulation

46. Intrinsic Motivation
• Personal value
• Emotional (not out of fear, but of hope)
• Autonomy in decisions
• Confidence in self

47. Community of Hope
• Surrounding oneself with people to “get
you”, have a common experience and
want the same thing that you do.

48. What Freedom Looks Like

49. Programs at Green Mountain
at Fox Run for Emotional and
Binge Eating
Pathway Series
Small group process to dig deeper into underlying
issues driving behavior; concurrent to stay at
Green Mountain
Binge and Emotional Eating Intensive
Weekends

50. Resources
• The Brain Fix, what’s the matter with your
gray matter. Ralph E. Carson, LD RD, PhD
• The Power of Habit, why we do what we
do in life and business. Charles Duhigg
• Overloaded Circuits. Edward M. Hallowell.
On Managing Yourself. HBR’S 10 Must Reads

51. Questions?
• If your question was not answered in the
Webinar, you may:
• Contact me: kari@fitwoman.com

52. Green Mountain at Fox Run
www.fitwoman.com
COME SEE FOR YOURSELF!