I was 5 years old when we lived in Florida - a pecan tree graced the front yard of our naval base housing, and a pair of squirrels would chase each other up and down the tree, hiding nuts from each other. It was way better entertainment than TV. Mom would go out front and pick some off the ground, and we’d patiently work our way through them, Mom cracking them open with a hammer, and the kids working them out of the shells.

Anyone who thinks food is JUST food was never a child.

Grandma’s fried mush sampled only on rare trips home to PA when we traveled with Dad during his service career. Baloney sandwiches on Wonder bread to keep three growing children quiet in the car during the interminable ride back from the commissary. Arteries forgive me - SCRAPPLE consumed on the weekend while little brains ingested the Creature Double Feature.

Evolutionarily speaking, to survive ya gotta eat, so it stands to reason that taste is probably the most developed sense, but in fact it’s the least in terms of brain wattage devoted to it (vision, hearing, touch and smell _all_ trump it in that order.) So WHY are we obsessed with food?

The hippocampus is the part of the brain primarily tasked with memory, and connecting senses with emotions, AND has receptors for hormones associated with appetite. It also connects the brain and the gut in ways we’re only just beginning to understand, but anyone who has ever had a bout of food poisoning or similar negative association with a taste knows all too well how the mere thought of that item can send the belly into anticipatory revolt.

And despite our rapidly evolving culture, our brains and bodies are pretty slow to catch on that MOST of us don’t need to pack on weight to get us through the long hard winter. We don’t have to worry about times of famine. But skipping breakfast is enough to trigger your body to slow down the metabolism just in case the next meal isn’t forthcoming.

It is ALWAYS my hope that the cerebral brain trumps the reptile brain; that our higher thought processes drown out the deeply-buried childhood associations we may no longer even be cognizant of. Being aware of the efficiency of our body in storing calories for “later” lets us know we’ve got enough to fight against with biology without letting also 35 year old ad jingles sabotage our success now.

Coach Marcey Tidwell is started as a client with NGPT in January 2011. Joining the team as an accountability coach, she wears many hats in assisting the Meltdown Nation! Nurse Marcey by day, she brings a wealth of knowledge the program!