Why You Crave Food So Intensely, Then Barely Enjoy It: How Understanding Liking Vs Wanting Can Help You Stop Overeating

Have you ever craved a food so badly you couldn’t stop thinking about it?

Maybe it was a pint of ice cream in the freezer. A bag of potato chips. Or a box of chocolate chip cookies calling your name from the kitchen.

You tried to ignore it. You told yourself you didn’t need it. But the craving wouldn’t go away. Finally, you gave in.

The first few bites were delicious. But somewhere along the way, the excitement faded. You kept eating anyway.

When you finished, you thought, “That wasn’t nearly as good as I expected.” Maybe you even felt disappointed. Or uncomfortably full.

Yet the next time you saw that same food, the craving came roaring back.

What’s going on here? Why would you want something so badly when the actual experience doesn’t always live up to your expectations?

It turns out there’s a fascinating explanation from neuroscience, and understanding it could change the way you handle food cravings.

Wanting Food and Liking Food Are Not the Same Thing

Most people assume that the more they want a food, the more they’ll enjoy eating it. That sounds reasonable. After all, if you desperately crave chocolate, you must really love chocolate, right?

Not necessarily.

Neuroscientist Kent Berridge and his colleagues have spent decades studying how the brain responds to rewards, including food. One of their most important findings is that wanting something and liking it are two different things.

Wanting is the motivation to get something. It’s the desire, urge, or craving that pushes you to seek it out.

Liking is the actual pleasure you experience when you get it.

These two processes usually work together. But they don’t always match. You can enjoy something without having a powerful urge to get it.

And here’s the surprising part: You can have an intense craving for something without getting nearly as much pleasure from it as you expected.

It’s the wanting that helps explain why you might find yourself reaching for another cookie even after the cookies have stopped tasting especially exciting.

Your desire to keep eating can remain strong even as your enjoyment starts to fade.

Dopamine Isn’t Just The Brain’s Pleasure Molecule

I’m sure you’ve heard of dopamine, and you may have heard dopamine described as the brain’s pleasure molecule. That description is common in popular media, but it’s not entirely accurate.

Dopamine is involved in motivation, learning, and reward-seeking. In the brain circuits Berridge studied, it’s especially important for wanting rewards, rather than directly creating the pleasure of liking them.

In other words, dopamine helps drive the urge to pursue a reward. It isn’t simply a chemical that makes you feel good. Other brain systems contribute to the pleasure you experience when eating something delicious.

Why does this matter? Because it means the brain processes that make you crave a food aren’t identical to the ones that make eating it enjoyable.

Here’s another interesting finding from this research: Something associated with a food can increase your desire for it even when you’re not hungry.

You go into the coffee shop – for a coffee – and see and smell the fresh cinnamon rolls.

You see a commercial showing melted cheese stretching off a slice of pizza.

You open the refrigerator and spot the cheesecake.

Suddenly, you want it. You weren’t thinking about food a moment ago. But now it’s on your mind.

Your brain has learned to connect certain sights, smells, places, and situations with rewarding eating experiences. Those reminders can trigger dopamine activity in your brain’s reward system increasing your desire for the food.

And the intensity of that wanting doesn’t necessarily tell you how much pleasure you’ll get if you eat the food – or how much displeasure you’ll feel if you overeat it.

That’s an important distinction. A strong craving is not a reliable prediction of how satisfying the food will actually be.

Why the First Few Bites May Be the Best

Here’s something else researchers discovered: The pleasure you get from a particular food often decreases as you continue eating it. Scientists call this sensory-specific satiety. That’s a fancy term for something you’ve probably experienced hundreds of times.

Imagine eating a piece of rich chocolate cake. The first bite is amazing. The second is delicious. The third is still pretty good.

But by the time you’re on the second slice, the next bite may not seem quite as special. You’ve become less interested in that particular taste.

In studies led by researchers including Barbara Rolls, people rated the pleasantness of foods before and after eating them. The researchers found that enjoyment of the food they’d just eaten could decline rapidly.

Interestingly, the appeal of other foods didn’t necessarily decline in the same way. This is one reason you might feel finished with dinner but suddenly become interested in dessert.

Of course, the exact point where pleasure fades varies from person to person and food to food. And sensory-specific satiety doesn’t mean you automatically stop eating when the pleasure decreases.

You might keep eating because the food is sitting in front of you, because you’re distracted, because it’s become a habit, or simply because some pleasure remains.

But here’s the main point: More food doesn’t always mean more enjoyment.
Sometimes a smaller amount delivers most of the pleasure you were looking for. And sometimes you discover that the food wasn’t nearly as rewarding as you’d imagined in the first place.

What If You Could Learn From Every Craving?

So how do you put this science to work? One approach comes from research on habits and reward-based learning.

Psychiatrist and neuroscientist Judson Brewer has studied how looking back at the actual results of habitual behaviors may help people change their relationship with cravings.

The basic idea is that your brain learns from experience. If you repeatedly associate a behavior with a reward, you’re more likely to want to repeat it.

But what happens when you pay closer attention and discover the reward wasn’t as good as you thought? And what if you remember that if you over-indulge, it not only wasn’t good – it actually made you feel awful. Stuffed. Bloated. Sick. Guilty. Ashamed. Frustrated at the prospect of starting the diet over on Monday.

When you’ve recapitulated like this, you have an opportunity to update your expectations the next time you feel a craving for that food. You’ll be more likely to say no completely if you aren’t physically hungry, or just mindfully enjoy a small portion that fits your calorie budget.

In a 2021 study, Brewer and his colleagues examined mindfulness training for problematic eating habits. They found that changes in how rewarding participants expected eating to be were associated with healthy changes in eating behavior.

The main idea is that instead of automatically believing everything your cravings promise you (the dopamine talking), you start comparing those promises with reality as you’ve experienced it before.

All it takes is looking back at what actually happened in the past.

Try The Craving Reality Check

Here’s a simple “look back” exercise you can try the next time you eat something you’ve been craving. I call it The Craving Reality Check. It involves asking yourself three questions.

1. What Did I Expect?

Think back to the moment before you started eating.

How badly did you want the food?
What were you expecting it to do for you?
Maybe you expected that ice cream to taste incredible.
Maybe you thought the chips would make a boring evening more enjoyable.
Maybe you were stressed and expected chocolate to help you relax.

Be specific about what you were looking forward to.

2. What Actually Happened?

Now compare your expectations with the real experience.

Did the food taste as good as you imagined?
Was the entire experience enjoyable, or mostly only the first few bites?
Did you notice when the pleasure started fading?
How did you feel afterward?
If you were eating because you were stressed, did the stress actually go away? Or did you get even more stressed because now you were worried about your weight and your health?
If you were eating because you were bored, did the food solve your boredom?

There’s no right or wrong answer. You’re simply gathering information.

3. What Did I Learn?

This is the most important question. Based on what actually happened, would you make the same choice again?

Maybe you discovered that you didn’t enjoy the food nearly as much as you expected.
Maybe you enjoyed it tremendously, but you would have been just as satisfied with a smaller serving.
Or maybe you genuinely loved the entire experience and have no regrets.

That’s useful information, too.

The purpose isn’t to convince yourself that enjoyable foods are bad. It’s to learn what actually satisfies you.

And the next time that craving strikes, you can use what you learned to make a more informed decision.

An Example: The Pizza That Didn’t Deliver

Let’s say you’ve had a rough day. You’re tired, frustrated, and craving pizza.

You imagine sitting on the couch with a big pie covered with all your favorite toppings. In your mind, it’s going to be the perfect ending to an otherwise lousy day. So you grab a slice and start eating.

The first few spoonfuls are fantastic. But after a while, you’re barely noticing the taste. You’re watching television, scrolling through your phone, and eating on autopilot.

Before you know it, the box is almost empty. You’re stuffed. Maybe a little uncomfortable. And your stressful day? Still stressful.

Now you do your Craving Reality Check.

You realize that you expected the ice cream to make you feel better, but the pleasure was brief and the stress relief never really arrived.

That doesn’t mean you have to swear off ice cream. It means you’ve learned something.

Next time, you might choose a small bowl and enjoy every spoonful.
Or you might decide that what you really need after a stressful day is a walk, a conversation with a friend, or some quiet time.

The craving hasn’t made the decision for you. You have information from your own past experience to make that decision yourself.

Use What You Learned the Next Time You Feel a Craving

The most valuable part of this exercise may come later, when the same craving returns. Instead of remembering only how wonderful you imagined the food would be, remind yourself how the experience actually turned out.

Maybe you’ll think: “Last time I ate those cookies, the first two were great. But after that, I wasn’t really enjoying them anymore.”

Or: “I thought that late-night snack would help me relax, but I still felt stressed afterward.”

Or even: “That dessert was absolutely worth it. But next time I’ll enjoy one reasonable serving – eating it nice and slow – without feeling like I have to eat the whole batch.”

You’re not trying to fight your cravings with guilt, shame, or brute-force willpower.

You’re using your own experience to make better choices.

And you don’t have to wait until after overeating to practice this. You can also pay attention while you’re eating.

Notice how much you’re enjoying each bite. Ask yourself whether you’re still getting the pleasure you wanted. You might find a natural stopping point you would otherwise have missed.

The Bottom Line: Wanting Isn’t the Same as Enjoying

The next time you experience a powerful food craving, remember something important: Just because you want a food badly doesn’t mean you’ll enjoy it as much as you expect.

Sometimes you will. Sometimes you won’t. And sometimes you’ll discover that the first few bites give you most of the pleasure, while the rest adds little. The only way to know is to pay attention.

You don’t have to treat a craving as an emergency, a command, or a personal failure.

Treat it as an opportunity to learn.

What did I expect? What actually happened? What did I learn?

Those three questions won’t magically eliminate every craving.

But they can help you become a better judge of what you truly enjoy, what actually satisfies you, and what’s worth eating. And that can make your next decision a whole lot easier.

Understanding the difference between liking and wanting, and having a practical strategy like the craving reality check can go a long way in helping you stop overeating.

But that’s only one concept and one strategy. There many others that can help you manage cravings and end overeating, and that’s why I created my new course, How To Beat Food Cravings

This program gives you not one, but 24 research-supported strategies: 10 psychological techniques to help you manage cravings and strengthen self-control, plus 14 behavioral and environmental strategies to make healthy eating easier and more automatic.

If you want to get control over your cravings, end over-eating, and achieve the health and ideal weight you want – without cutting out your favorite foods – visit this page to learn more ==> How To Beat Food Cravings – The Complete Course

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–Tom Venuto
Founder of Burn the Fat Inner Circle:
The Support Community For Health-First, All-Natural Body Transformation
Creator of How To Beat Food Cravings – The Complete Course

Research References

Berridge K, et al, Dissecting components of reward: ‘liking’, ‘wanting’, and learning, Current Opinion in Pharmacology, 9(1):65–73, 2009.

Havermans R, You say it’s liking, I say it’s wanting. On the difficulty of disentangling food reward in man, Appetite, 57: 286-294, 2011.

Hetherington M, Rolls B, The time course of sensory-specific satiety. Appetite, 12(1):57–68, 1989.

Morales I, Berridge K, ‘Liking’ and ‘wanting’ in eating and food reward: Brain mechanisms and clinical implications. Physiology & Behavior, 227:113152, 2020.

Taylor VA, et al. Awareness drives changes in reward value which predict eating behavior change: Probing reinforcement learning using experience sampling from mobile mindfulness training for maladaptive eating. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 10(3):482–497, 2021.

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