Diets And Your Dopamine System (What Foods Are Worst / Best?)

The following vide and blog post is a short snippet from my online course Dopamine Focused Fasting.

The course will feature 5 different fasting protocols, and about 35 videos in total.

Two of the fasting protocols also have a scoring system, making them like a fun game to play. And one of the protocol is a super hard reset. That protocol is called "The Beast"...

...and for good reason. It is hard. Try it at your own peril ;)

As we talked about in the lesson about diet and dopamine, it is not 100% clear exactly what kind of diet is best for your dopamine system, although there is pretty strong evidence that a keto diet is favorable.

Junk food can cause a bit of desensitization...

However, what we do know with 100% certainty is that  consuming a lot of junk food, sugar and candy, can to some degree shift your dopamine set point and desensitize you a bit - even though it tastes so good...

...well I guess that’s the precise reason also :)

You don't have to have a full blown junk food addiction for this to happen....

And you don’t have to have a food addiction for this to take effect. For example, they have done studies on rats who overeat on junk food and within just a few days of doing that they saw a noticeable downregulation of their dopamine D2 receptors. 

Fasting from food falls on the other end of the spectrum...

This is probably  also why fasting works so well for upregulating your receptors as well, because, well, if eating yummy foods are here (all the way to one side of the spectrum)  then fasting and not eating all is on the complete other end of that  spectrum.

Healthy - whole foods are not a problem at all...

But it is also important to point out that normal whole food items are not bad for your dopamine system, unless you really overeat. It’s the modern processed foods that is really  taking a toll on our dopamine system. 

Fast food and the "bliss point"...

For example, have you heard that many fast food restaurants and processed food use a specific ratio of fat and sugar to create a so-called “bliss point”, where the food will give you the highest amount of dopamine you can get from eating...

...of course this is going to hammer your reward system harder!

Eating junk food is a low value activity...

So, all those milkshakes, the donuts, candy, all those fat-dripping French fries, those are definitely to be avoided during your fasting protocols, because again, eating those are indeed a low value dopamine activity. 

We can still enjoy it - from time to time...

Now, here I need to confess that in between fasting protocols and where I’m not doing a dopamine fast, I do allow myself to eat a bit more unhealthy food and give myself treats from time to time.

Sometimes quite often actually.

I'm not saying I’m recommending you do the same, but it is one of those good things that life has to offer that I want to keep, at least on some level in my life, when I’m not doing a dopamine fast.  

In between the fasting protocols - everything is more fun and pleasurable (including eating food)...

And in between fasts you get so much more pleasure out of eating and of pretty much all activities imaginable, which I’m going to talk more about in module number 8.

Thanks for reading!

-Scandinavian Bob

P.S. If you want to find out the current  state of your dopamine system, whether or not you're desensitized by all the modern world's stimuli, fill in your email and name below and I'll send you and interesting dopamine quiz.

Related posts:

• Dopamine and reward deficiency syndrome
• Porn addiction, stress, dopamine and your prefrontal cortex
• Are YouTube shorts and social media reels bad for your dopamine system?