Week 1 / Assessing
Hyperpalatable Foods: Why One Bite Isn’t Enough
Let’s face it: we’ve all been there. You open a bag of chips “for a handful” and suddenly it’s empty—ugh, so much for ‘Family Size’. That’s the seductive magic of hyperpalatable, ultra-processed foods: they’re designed to hit our brains' pleasure centers hard and fast, making it nearly impossible to stop at just one serving.
What Makes a Food “Hyperpalatable”?
These foods typically combine two or more elements your brain really loves: fat, salt, sugar, and refined carbs. Think chips, cookies, frozen pizza, packaged snack cakes—basically, anything that would survive the apocalypse and still taste amazing. And while it might be easy to point a greasy finger at the usual subjects, ‘healthy’ foods can be hyperprocessed and engineered with the same ease. According to researchers, these foods hit that “bliss point,” making them more craveable and harder to stop eating because they override your body’s natural fullness cues.
The Trap Is Designed to Be Easy
It’s not just you. Hyperprocessed foods are everywhere—they have a long shelf life, don’t require chopping or washing. They don’t demand mental energy or meal prep. Let’s be honest, that’s why we reach for them more than we’d like. You’ve had a long day, or maybe you're just not in the mood to cook—suddenly, tearing open a package feels like a perfectly rational choice.
And let’s not ignore the emotional gut punch that comes from tossing out a mushy bag of spinach. Watching apples rot hurts us to our core. So we choose convenience, and our brain nods along, comforted by the ease and predictability—even if the payoff is short-lived.
Why Your Brain Wants More (and More)
Hyperpalatable foods are built to keep you coming back. They mess with your hunger and satiety hormones, leading to more cravings and less satisfaction. The first bite is rarely the end—it’s the starting gun. These foods stimulate dopamine, a feel-good chemical, but over time, your brain becomes less responsive, and suddenly, you need more of that flavor hit just to feel normal.
In contrast, real food—whole, minimally processed food—doesn’t hit you like that. It satisfies gradually. An apple or handful of almonds will fill you up, but they won’t light your brain up like a slot machine. And that’s the point.
Start With One Meal—Because Your Brain Needs to Show Up
If we’re going to make meaningful changes, we need our brains fully present and accounted for. That’s hard to do when something with a barcode is calling your name. Streamlining hyperprocessed foods—even a little—gives your brain a chance to focus on the work ahead.
No, it won’t always be convenient. But that’s exactly why we take it one meal at a time. Not a total life overhaul—just one manageable shift. That gives you space to practice, to observe, to adjust. And eventually, those small changes build something easy, intuitive, and smart.
Your Mindful Invitation
So this week, just notice. What foods make you want the next bite before you’re done with the first? What feels effortless but maybe too effortless? No judgment, no guilt—just curiosity. By quieting the cravings, you create space for intention. And with intention, your meals can stop being the day’s biggest challenge—and start being a rhythm.
Don’t Think About it: Why Avoiding Things Makes it worse
Have you ever told yourself, “I’m absolutely not going to eat that cookie”… and then, 20 minutes later, found yourself suspiciously brushing crumbs off your shirt? Welcome to the ironic process of mental control, a fancy way of saying: the more you try not to think about something, the more your brain locks onto it.
Psychologist Daniel Wegner coined this idea in the '90s with the famous experiment: “Try not to think of a white bear.” And guess what happened? People couldn’t stop thinking about white bears. Because when your brain is tasked with avoiding a thought, it constantly has to check if you’re still avoiding it. And to check, it has to bring it back into your awareness. Hence, the cookie. Or the bread basket. Or the pint of ice cream..
So when you declare, “No more snacking!” or “No more sugar!” without a plan or a substitute, your brain, doing its best, actually makes the idea of sugar harder to shake. It’s not sabotage. It’s just wiring.
Meanwhile, Decision Fatigue Is Quietly Breaking You Down
Layer on decision fatigue, and suddenly your brain isn’t just thinking about cookies—it’s tired of deciding whether or not to eat them. Every day, you make hundreds of choices: what to wear, when to respond to a text, whether to walk now or later, what to eat, whether to cook, and what to cook. It adds up.
By dinner, your brain is slightly feral, craving fries, and not interested in “making a balanced choice.” That’s why it’s not laziness when you reach for the easiest thing. It’s exhaustion. You’re not failing; your brain is just clocking out early.
The Fix Isn’t More Discipline. It’s Better Design.
This is why our approach doesn’t rely on massive willpower or strict rules. Instead, we build scaffolding—structures to lighten your mental load. But what’s easy for you depends on your brain and that’s where the coaching comes in. We need to figure out the steps that feel doable.
By not constantly battling thoughts or forcing tough choices in real-time, you free up space to focus on what really matters: feeling good, staying active, enjoying your day—not micromanaging your cravings like a full-time job.
Something in the food, or in the signals in the blood or in the brain is in conflict with another area. Frequently the physical and nutritional fullness don’t seem adequate to override the circuitry of desire. It’s not just the food itself that influences these processes. We know that all those external cues to eat – advertisements, shop fronts, price, packaging, smells – have significant effects on our brains and bodies that we’re only just beginning to understand.
van Tulleken, Chris. Ultra-Processed People: The Science Behind Food That Isn't Food (pp. 107-108). W. W. Norton & Company. Kindle Edition.