Your Primitive Brain

Have you ever felt like you had 2 different parts of you that were fighting each other? For example, one part of you wants pizza and wine and chocolate while the other part of you wants to get your weight under control so you can feel better?  It’s the proverbial angel on one shoulder whispering one ear while on the other shoulder is the devil tempting you with immediate pleasure, right?

What’s going on here? Is there anything we can do to stop the war going on in our heads? Tune in to today’s podcast to find out!

Episode Highlights:

4:41 The primary motivations of the primitive brain are:
1) Seek anything that brings pleasure
2) Avoid anything that brings pain
3) Conserve energy at all costs.
4)Stick with people who are safe, fear those you don’t know
5) Avoid being seen.
Now, this is our primitive brain…. But our brains did evolve beyond this, right? So we have a human brain that has evolved past our primitive brain. This is called our “prefrontal cortex”

10:35 In order to lose weight and keep it off, what we need to do is to put the prefrontal cortex - the human brain - in charge of the primitive brain.
We do this by planning ahead EVERYTHING we will eat, 24 hours in advance. This way we are not giving our primitive brain any chance of making a food decision.

13:14 This is why I always say the weight loss journey done well is a journey of powerful personal evolution. When you can take control over your primitive brain with food, you can do it with spending, you can do it with drinking, you can do it with exercise, you can do it with relationships, you can do it with time management, you can just watch yourself coming more and more into alignment with your goals and dreams, evolving yourself, getting better all the time.

--- Transcription Below ---

Hey everyone and welcome back to the podcast this week.. Today I’m flying solo as Marchelle is taking some time off.  So welcome!

Today I wanted to talk about our Primitive Brains.  I want us to get a really really good understanding of what our primitive brains are, what they do and how they work. I’ve been talking a lot about this with my patients in the clinic lately – well I actually always talk about the primitive brain - because i think it really helps to understand what’s going on in our brains.

OK so I want you to imagine our ancestors, our hunter gatherer ancestors, living in caves, trying to find food and water and warmth, and basically, just trying to survive until the next day. There were animals that would hunt them, warring tribes that would kill them… life was always a constant jockeying for survival.

Our brains learned over time that things that brought pleasure were essential for survival.

• When we eat food, we get a little hit of dopamine and it’s pleasurable, so we learned to seek that out.  
• When we drink water, we get a little hit of dopamine, so we learned to seek that out. 
• When we have sex, we get a bigger hit of dopamine, and oxytocin as wel - oxytocin is the love hormone - so we learned to seek that out. 
• When we find warmth when we’re cold, we get a hit of dopamine, so we learned to seek that out.
• When we gather in groups, that connection with other people brings a hit of dopamine and oxytocin,  so we learned to seek that out. 

All of these things: food, water, sex, warmth, connection… all of these are associated with survival and prolonging our lives, and perpetuating the species….so as far as our primitive brain is concerned, these pleasurable activities mean LIFE. 

Our brains also learned over time that pain is bad… that pain can bring death. So avoiding pain, whether it’s physical or emotional pain… is a huge motivation of the primitive brain.

Our brains learned that if we expend too much energy doing something routine, we might not have the energy we need to fight a predator or warring clansman, so our primitive brains learned to conserve energy, and to turn routine activities into unconscious habits so we wouldn’t have to think about them.

Our primitive brains learned that if we stayed in the cave and out of the sight of predators we would be more likely to survive. So our primitive brains will discourage us from sticking our necks out and being seen.

So do you get this? The primary motivations of the primitive brain are 

1. Seek anything that brings pleasure
2. Avoid anything that brings pain
3. Conserve energy at all costs.
4. Stick with people who are safe, fear those you don’t know
5. Avoid being seen. 

Now, this is our primitive brain…. But our brains did evolve beyond this, right? So we have a human brain that has evolved past our primitive brain.  This is called our “prefrontal cortex”; many call it our “executive brain.” Our prefrontal cortex is much more evolved and thinks long past immediate survival. It’s what makes us human.  This is very different from the animal kingdom and what sets us apart. Animals don’t have meetings. Humans do.

We use our prefrontal cortex when we plan for the future, set goals, and do creative things like write, create art, design and build buildings, solve problems, read, study – all of that. You are using your prefrontal cortex as you are listening to this podcast right now. 

OK so you may be asking Dr. Angela, this is all very interesting, but what does this have to do with my weight loss journey? 

Well, it has EVERYTHING to do with your weight loss journey.  And I mean EVERYTHING. 

Imagine that you are out running errands on a Saturday afternoon. You had breakfast around 9am but now it’s 1 or 2 pm and you’re starting to get hungry. You want to make a good choice, but you happen to be at Costco and that pizza that they sell at the snack bar is smelling really good. And a soda doesn’t cost much more.  It’s all cheap and delicious and ready to go right now.  It’s pleasurable and convenient and solves the pain of your hunger. You gobble the pizza and guzzle the soda and go on about finishing your errands. Problem solved.

So think about what just happened there. You have a problem, you’re hungry.  Your body needs food.  Your primitive brain thinks you might die without food, and is looking for a solution to this.  Remember its primary motivations.  What’s going to be delicious and pleasurable? What’s going to be easy?  What will require the least amount of effort? What will relieve pain?   Under these conditions, the pizza and soda is a perfect choice. Pizza is extremely pleasurable. It’s concentrated pleasure, actually. Not like eating a salad, which is pleasurable but not concentrated or false pleasure like the pizza.  And the soda with its sugar and caffeine, hits all the bliss points in your brain. Perfect solution.

Except your primitive brain is not thinking about all unintended consequences of this decision… The heartburn you will experience later, the blood sugar crash, the lethargy, the weight gain, the increased risk for heart disease, liver disease, cancer… the sleep apnea. No, your primitive brain does not have the capacity to envision any of this. It’s only concerned about solving the immediate problem of survival right now.

Later, you may be asking yourself… why did I do that? It’s totally in conflict with the goals I have. And you may feel guilty and you may have an f-it moment. That’s really common. You start to think this is impossible, this is way too hard.

Now there’s something I want to interject here.  If you lived on a deserted island, or if you lived in prehistoric times where you had to hunt or fish for your food, or you had to gather plants and berries for food… you could rely on your primitive brain to make good decisions… because all you would have access to is whole nourishing food.

But you don’t live in prehistoric times. You live in a toxic food environment.  Almost everything that’s available to eat - like the pizza or hot dogs at costco, the coffee drinks and scones at starbucks, the sandwiches at subway… I can go on and on…. Almost everything is toxic.  Our food is killing us.  It takes a concentrated effort to stay healthy when you live in the western food environment.  It takes being a little bit obsessed about making sure your food doesn’t have toxins in it.

Remember that you have a prefrontal cortex too. This part of your brain has your long term goals in mind. This part of your brain understands that in order to lose weight and get healthy again, it’s necessary to do some extra work.  Work that the primitive brain does not want to do.  Things like planning meals ahead, going grocery shopping, taking food with you when you go on errands so you won’t end up starving in the middle of a trip to Costco.

Here is the biggest and best weight loss secret you will ever hear.  Are you ready?

In order to lose weight and keep it off, what we need to do is to put the prefrontal cortex - the human brain - in charge of the primitive brain. 

We do this by planning ahead EVERYTHING we will eat, 24 hours in advance. This way we are not giving our primitive brain any chance of  making a food decision. 

This is why planning is so important.  Your primitive brain is very powerful, especially in the moment. So what you are doing is you are instructing the primitive brain by making all your decisions ahead of time.  This is the only way you can put the prefrontal cortex in charge of the primitive brain.

Any food decision that you make on the same day, you can be pretty well assured that the primitive brain will have some say… even if just for the convenience aspect. For example, I find that when I am trying to make dinner decisions in the morning, I am more likely to pick easier things that are less nutritious, whereas if I am making the decision the day before… or even several days before, I’m more likely to include good protein and lots of vegetables.

So, the night before, you write down everything you will eat the next day.  Some people say you actually need to do this in the morning after breakfast, write down everything you will eat the following day.  In my experience the night before is enough but you can experiment with yourself.  If you find that the decisions you make the night before are still being driven by your primitive brain and not your prefrontal cortex, try to actually make the decisions a full 24 hours or more ahead of time.

Remember why this is so powerful.  You are putting your prefrontal cortex in charge of your primitive brain. The 24 hour plan will help you do that. 

Here’s another hint: Expect your primitive brain to rebel. Expect it to come up with excuses.  This is too much work. This doesnt’ taste good. This is boring.  I’m tired of this. I don’t have time for this.  Other things are more important.

When this happens you can tell your primitive brain, yes I hear you, but we’re doing this my way now, I’m in charge, not you.

In this way we learn step by step bit by bit to get control over our primitive brains.

This is why I always say the weight loss journey done well is a journey of powerful personal evolution. When you can take control over your primitive brain with food, you can do it with spending, you can do it with drinking, you can do it with exercise, you can do it with relationships, you can do it with time management, you can just watch yourself coming more and more into alignment with your goals and dreams, evolving yourself, getting better all the time. 

And that my friend, is a very exciting place to be!

Ok so let’s review  –

There are two parts of our brain that can make food decisions. The primitive brain and the prefrontal cortex.

The 3 major motivations of the primitive brain are to seek pleasure, avoid pain and conserve energy.  

The prefrontal cortex is your evolved human brain that has your long term goals in mind

To lose weight and keep it off, it’s necessary for the prefrontal cortex to get control over the primitive brain. This has to be done ahead of time, not in the moment.  So you want to have your food planned ahead for at least 24 hours.  If you do not have your meals planned ahead of time, your primitive brain will be making all of your food decisions… finding whatever is easiest and most pleasurable inthe moment, and if it helps avoid pain, even better. So in our western food environment you will be looking for highly processed convenience foods that generate concentrated pleasure. 

To lose weight and keep it off for good, it’s important to plan everything you eat at least 24 hours in advance… and carry food with you.  This is not just while you are losing weight, this is to protect you from our toxic modern processed food environment. 

All right everyone that’s all for this week, I’ll see you next week!