Like most of us who have struggled with weight, my initial concern in dealing with my eating was to focus on food.
If only the food circuit were the problem, most people would stay in EBT training for long enough to master emotion regulation and rewire one circuit, about two to three months.
Obesity treatment is more complex than that, which is why the EBT Program takes 7 to 15 months to complete.
Granted, the circuits are challenging to erase, as described in another blog, but one of the issues is that there is more than one of these challenging wires (“survival circuits”). Once one is activated, due to state-specific memory (wires at the same stress level foster activation), one “emotional reflex circuit” leads to another and another.
Although the act of overeating may yield a stronger memory, often many of these wires are implicated in the overall circuit rampage that a formidable binge-eating episode can involve. Frequently, the Food Circuit is not the strongest! What follows is an example of one of these rampages.
Charlotte’s Circuit Rampage
For Charlotte, whose job as a project manager in a tech company was stressful, four criteria contributed to her typical episodes of overeating. It all began with her relationship circuit, which was to give others power and look to them for validation. She was merged with her boss as well as the three people who reported to her. As a result, her Merge Circuit fired multiple times throughout the day.
This kept her in chronic stress, which fostered the activation of several other circuits. One was a Mood Circuit, becoming stuck in an extreme mood. Most of the day, she was on a false high, with surges of dopamine activated by her anticipating getting the approval of others. If she just did everything perfectly and pleased everyone, then she would be safe. This was an illusion as the Mood circuit itself was causing biochemical dysregulation and actual physiologic danger.
However, another circuit came into play, which was her Body Circuit, the drive to judge her body, another stressor. Self-image and body image are intertwined in brain circuitry, so each verbal assault she waged harmed both. With all the merging, false highs, and body judgment, she had an emotional reflex rampage most days, even if that reality was not registering as feeling “stressed.”
After a day of circuit lashing . . .
By the time she arrived home after a day of “circuit lashing,” Charlotte was starving and so stressed that her Food Circuit took charge and she ate far more than her body needed, then topped it off with some sweets. Of course, she needed all that food because of the lightning-fast chemical cascade of all four circuits – and a 5th one.
She needed the sweets to activate yet another wire, which was her Mood Circuit of shame. Although it was completely illogical (the wires are in the emotional brain), her drive was to disparage herself for overeating. That last reward was the strongest because it was familiar. She had been shamed early in life, and although shame did not feel “good,” the brain finds the familiar even more rewarding than what is objectively pleasant.
Rewiring for freedom and peace of mind
To wire her brain for weight loss, she would need to rewire all five of these circuits. It might take her six months to do that, but once she has rewired it, she has something that is even more important than lasting weight loss. She will have freedom and peace of mind.
