The Pleasure Trap
So what is the pleasure trap?!
The Pleasure Trap is the elusive force that is your own nervous system's "internal compass," telling you what is best for you. However, we live in a modern world that has introduced things that do not support our health and happiness. As you may have guessed by now, one of the most destructive aspects of The Pleasure Trap is food.
Dr. Lisle explains that all of us inherit intrinsic incentives from our ancient ancestors that he terms The Motivational Triad: the pursuit of pleasure, the avoidance of pain, and the conservation of energy.
Modern society has introduced many new ways to pursue pleasure that do not support health. We have "super normal" stimulus that SHORT CIRCUIT our system. We have modern-day "magic buttons," as Dr. Lisle calls them - they can be drugs, gambling, food…. The buttons are dangerous as they appeal to the instincts imbedded in the motivational triad, but rob victims of health and happiness. This deceiving of our intuitions (the short-circuiting of our internal compass) is the "pleasure trap."
Food, like drugs, can stimulate dopamine cascades in the pleasure centers of the brain. But there is food - the bounty of nature that we are designed to eat, and then there is "magic button food" - the stuff that we have created in this modern world. And real food and man-made food are fundamentally different in their effect on health and happiness.
Dr. Lisle explains the effect with phases (refer to attached chart):
Phase I: the diet humans are designed to eat of whole natural foods that give us ordinary pleasure
Phase II: unnatural, processed foods that have a drug-like effect on our system: salt, sugar, fat, etc. that give us enhanced pleasure
"Eating this feels so good."
BUT
Your body gets used to it, so enter phase three:
Phase III: unnatural foods we've gotten used to after a few weeks and no longer provide enhanced pleasure
It's like the environment has hijacked the mind.
The consumption of magic food is responsible for so much disease and obesity within industrialized society. Yet, even when an individual knows that magic food is dangerous, it can be challenging to resist. The allure of man-made foods is remarkably similar to that of drugs.
So what are we going to do about it? Enter Phase 4 - make positive change:
Phase IV: Move back to a whole-food, plant-based diet. Unfortunately, this initial switch in the diet will give us subnormal pleasure.
Phase V: after 8-10 weeks on a natural foods diet, we move from subnormal pleasure to regular pleasure.
Initially, you will feel awful, it feels wrong. Every instinct is telling you to go back to magic food - because it feels "better"…….. However - stick with it! Even if you know you want to eat healthy whole food, plant-based diet, your taste buds are going to think you are moving in the wrong direction, what Dr. Lisle calls a "motivational dilemma." It is a difficult challenge to reset your motivational system when it comes to diet.
So how do you get started?
1) It would be best if you got over the idea that you are emotionally or mentally defective - your hunger drive is not your enemy. There is no flaw in your basic human design. Unfortunately, this design evolved over millions of years to work within an environment where calories were hard to come by, and these calories only come as natural foods. Humans have not adopted to deal with the abundance of food available in our society.
2) Commit to eating ONLY whole food plant-based food for five FULL days. Accept that it will be tough, and it will not feel good at first. This period will reset your system so you can find pleasure in REAL FOOD: fresh fruits and vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, and seeds.
If anyone wants to learn more about this, simply Google Dr. Doug Lisle and watch a few of his videos or even better, read his book!