Bad habit loops

I get a bit frustrated when I realize I’ve backslid. I notice I’m craving and eating carbs again, and I’m feeling worse and worse each day. My good eating habits (like starting each meal with fiber and protein) have died off. The more I eat carbs, the more I crave carbs.

I’m a complex system with a strange attractor that keeps pulling me in this direction.

• Blood sugar loop: Eating carbs causes blood sugar to spike and insulin can pull it back down too quickly, leading to craving.
• Reward loop: Carbs combined with fats trigger dopamine, but less and less over time time as I develop a tolerance, leading to bigger and bigger cravings.
• Mood loop: Insulin in the blood clears amino acids that compete with tryptophan, allowing more to cross into the brain which boosts synthesis of serotonin. Carbs improve a bad mood and so stress can lead to more cravings.
• The microbiome loop: Some microbes in the gut prefer starches and simple sugars, and they can send signals through gut-brain pathways to increase cravings.
• The habit loop: Habits run on triggers and context cues. Eating carbs in particular situations and places turns my environment into a trigger for further carb cravings.

It all loops back to craving more carbs, which makes it hard to overcome with a single intervention. So, I need to rebuild the good habits and see if I can’t disrupt some of these other loops.