Have you been trying to lose weight by following a calorie-deficient diet, exercising regularly, and walking 10k steps every day? Are you taking all these essential steps, yet still failing? Most likely, it is not because you are doing something wrong; you are struggling because of your internal battle with your mind.
Dr Anshuman Kaushal, MD, robotic gastrointestinal laser and bariatric surgeon, and obesity expert at Apollo New Delhi, explained in an Instagram post shared on November 1 why this happens. According to him, it is not that you lack willpower. You’re failing to lose weight because you are being bullied by your own brain.
He explained how your gut-brain hormones manipulate your cravings and how we can outsmart them scientifically, because ‘once you understand the noise, you can control the volume.’
Why do you fail to lose weight?
According to Dr Kaushal, ‘food noise’ is the reason why you fail to lose weight, and it isn’t your fault. The surgeon explained, “Can’t lose weight, are cravings bothering you? Listen to this. Have you ever wondered why your brain suddenly demands pizza at 11 PM right after dinner? Welcome to the noisy neighbourhood of your mind, where food noise never shuts up. You think you are craving food. But often it is not hunger, it is a neural drama.”
What is food noise?
The human brain, as per the surgeon, has a gossip network of hormones, where ghrelin, the hunger hormone, prompts you to eat, while leptin, the satiety hormone, tries to interrupt by signalling that you are full and you should stop.
However, in this conversation, dopamine, the pleasure king, wins by jumping in and saying, “Ignore them, let’s eat a chocolate, let’s eat a pastry.” That is food noise, Dr Kaushal highlighted.
“It’s the mental chatter between your hormones and reward circuits, especially your hypothalamus and limbic system,” he added.
How does it harm us and hinder weight loss goals?
Dr Kaushal explained that modern food companies often exploit this perfectly engineered chaos of food noise, preventing us from losing weight. “They design hyper-palatable foods in the labs: tasty food, high sugar, high fat, high salt, ajinomoto, umami flavour. This hijacks your brain’s reward centres, just like nicotine or cocaine,” he explained.
Now, here is the science. In people struggling with obesity, binge eating, or insulin resistance, according to the surgeon, this dopamine response becomes desensitised.
“So, the brain screams louder for the same pleasure hit. The noise increases. You are not eating because you are hungry, you are eating because silence feels uncomfortable,” he added.
How do weight loss drugs help?
Citing research done by Yale and Stanford, Dr Kaushal stated that their recent studies have clearly shown that GLP-1 agonists, such as semaglutide (Ozempic and Wegovy) or tirzepatide (Mounjaro), are reducing this neural volume.
How? They reduce food noise by stabilising your hypothalamic signalling. “It’s not just appetite suppression; it’s like quieting the mental FM channel that keeps playing: ‘Eat something, eat something, eat something.’ Dopamine will increase,” Dr Kaushal said.
He added that what GLP-1 drugs do is convert your brain from a ‘hungry toddler in a toy store’ to a ‘calm adult scrolling Netflix without thinking about food.’
Lastly, Dr Kaushal noted, “If your mind feels like a loudspeaker that won’t stop saying ‘eat something,’ it’s not a lack of willpower; it is neurobiology. We understand that obesity is a neurometabolic disease.”
Note to readers: This article is for informational purposes only and not a substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the advice of your doctor with any questions about a medical condition.
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