Is Your Weight Loss Lost To Scrolling?

February 8, 2023 Ashley 0 Comments

January’s been a great month for me.

First, I quit Starbucks (and, in so doing, inadvertently quit sugar too).

Then, as an effect of that, I gave up an hour of my life I spend on social media each day at lunch.

None of them, mind you, were New Year’s resolutions.

I didn’t even plan to have a resolution. In fact, the first thing started because I wanted to spend less money on Starbucks. The second thing happened because I quit buying my matcha lattes (not realizing how much sugar was in them.) And the third thing resulted from both of those things: without my daily trips to the cafe, sipping sugar free matcha here at my day job, what was I going to do with my life? Well, seeing as I had all this newfound brain power not being slaughtered by a sweet green demon succubus anymore… I spent it writing instead of playing on social media. The result? I’ve been dropping weight minus any effort at all. Now, the biggest part of that, of course, is the sugar crash I’m not getting anymore from the first part of my unintentional New Year’s resolution. (Read here for that journey…) The second part, however, is something I’ve noticed since ditching my Instagram addiction for an hour more than I usually do each day.

Aside from feeling less depressed and more energetic… I’m not as peckish either.

Usually, I couldn’t make it through my last half of work without eating yet another protein bar or stealing snacks from the rec room. I’d be starving by the time work ended. I felt mentally lethargic. And, again, most of that is obviously attributable to the sugar I’m not having anymore. However, today, I found myself going back to old habits out of boredom – wading through the social app waves when patient flow was slowing down. And, like clockwork, I felt the desire to eat – even though I wasn’t genuinely hungry. Coincidence? Maybe. But probably not. Like always, I used the opportunity to see if a correlation was there (so that I could weave it into wellness advice for you beautiful humans trying to reach your weight loss goals).

What I found was interesting.

The first part probably isn’t news.

As most of us know, social media is designed to addict us. Every time you get a notification, you get a dopamine reward. It may be a like. It may be a DM. It might be a message. Either way, you get that dopamine hit that keeps driving you on back, obsessively tapping that app to check and see what’s new. Now, we might not think this is bad because dopamine is a feel good neurotransmitter, right? Wrong. Dopamine serves a purpose. But, like most other stuff our body makes, too much of this good thing is beyond bad. In fact, an inundation with it has been linked to increased aggression and decreased impulse control. Specifically, studies have shown that it correlates with conditions such as ADHD, binge eating, and other addictions. And there it was. That depletion was leading directly to my poor impulse control. I wasn’t even hungry – but because it sounded like it might bring me more pleasure, I felt compelled to snack.

So, if you’ve been hearing that the nature of the content you follow on social media is the reason you’re binge eating and losing motivation to go to the gym, it’s not true. The reason is actually far worse. The reason’s that you’re on social media at all, scrolling, addicted, and getting high on your digital supply. We all know that I’m not gonna quit IG anytime soon. I use it for friendships as well as work. It has definite benefits. However, after feeling the positive effects of jettisoning all the socials for an extra hour each day, I can easily say that it’s worth moderating – just like any of your “vices” on a sustainable, long term diet. Sugar. Bad fats. Simple carbs. Social media. The trick isn’t to try to obliterate all your demons forever (unless you’re powerless over them and cannot control your use of them – in which case, you might head on over to our obsessionofthemind.com site for some good insight). It’s more a matter of keeping them on a leash that allows you to thrive without sacrificing an enjoyable quality of life.