“Hyper-palatable, highly-rewarding, heavily-processed” food… you know, the stuff you find yourself face-first in after a few drinks or that terrible argument with your partner… is a major disruptor. Have you ever noticed that after eating a whole can of Pringles/2lbs of Sour Patch Kids/half a pizza, that you don’t really feel full…or even satisfied? Foods like this light up the pleasure centers of our brain and override our natural “stop” signals. We keep eating, ignoring that we’re stuffed, waiting until we feel sick or blacked out or there’s none left. Typically, these foods also contain relatively few nutrients, so we haven’t nourished our bodies properly: we’ve consumed a ton of calories, very few of which are actually serving us. We’ve moved from mixed eating into pure hedonic eating, and this hormone loop disruption is why it’s so hard to control: our natural regulatory system gets interrupted, and we feel powerless to stop it, as our innate stop-gap measure is thrown out the window.