Seriously. Quitting cigarettes is childs play compared to eating healthy. I've managed to not smoke for years after quitting cold turkey. I've been trying to lose weight for a decade or more with varying degrees of success and failure. If I could just never have food and be fine, I would have been healthy a long time ago. But your body requires food, often multiple times a day. And life doesn't always give you the time or options you need to keep healthy. And not even getting into the horrible nutrition education I've had my entire life, it's like everything was set up for me to fail, and then everyone's mad at me for failing, like it wasn't the expected outcome.
It’s serious medicine and not right for everyone but if you’re seriously obese then consider discussing Semaglutide or similar medications with your doctor. For some people it had been a game changer. It can make it easier to eat a small portion and then stop and it can quiet the persistent food thoughts. The side effects can be too much for some folks and it’s definitely something that shouldn’t be started without doing research and discussing with a physician. But it can make dietary changes much more attainable.
@Steve@shish_mish There is one rule I follow: no packaged snacks. Any snacks I want, I make at home. I got into it for environmental reasons, but after I went vegan, it was the main principle stopping me from going for all of those vegan junk food options. Instead, I make bliss balls and, occasionally, cookies or other treats. Those combined with fruit make great snacks while not destroying my health.
Oh, I also pretty much always go for WFPB recipes, even for snacks.
It sort of is that simple. There are no addictive ingredients in whole foods. Fruit, vegetables, whole grains, non-processed proteins. People just have to make better decisions at the grocery store.
Yeah, it's a serious problem for me. I'm largely channeling those feelings of hatred into reminding myself not to do that. Perhaps not the healthiest approach, but it's been working so far.
My sister bought me a bunch of pastries for my birthday, and just left them in my refrigerator. Like seriously a problematic amount of pastries, that I had to schedule my days around. I work from home, and after a while, I just got used to deking into the fridge for a quick pastry. It was ridiculous, but also a lot of fun.
Anyway, when those pastries finally ended, man... the jonesing I felt when I realised I couldn't just reach for a pastry all of a sudden...
Note that no actual sugar is required to develop a dependency, because flour, and almost all sources of carbohydrates are effectively sources of sugar.
Once for my birthday my aunt baked me not one but two cakes! She couldn't remember if I prefer chocolate or vanilla so she just made both. That was a week of indulgence I vividly remember, and my god at the end there I was so relieved those damn cakes were eaten omg XD
Chocolate can definitely be cloying after a while, I find. But a St. Honoré... foof, it's like eating a rich, refreshing cloud. I could have kept eating it every day.
Not only have we had proof of this for a very long time, the entire US industrial food industry is built around making processed foods as addictive as possible.
What helped me drink a lot less soda was to begin looking at the sugar content on everything. A can has 75% of your daily recommended max intake, a bottle has 125%. Combined with the amount of sugar in a lot of other things, I’m pretty sure many Americans consume like double the amount of sugar they should pretty often. Plus, the 50 grams they recommend is still a lot of sugar and you shouldn’t be even consuming that much
For me, getting soda on cans made a huge difference - the parent didn’t estimate the sugar content if a 2l bottle. Anyhow having cans both let’s me off the hook for having one, keeps me from rationalizing that I don’t want to waste it by letting it get flat, and I find it easier to limit myself to only one per day
(Plus it’s diet. I’m not sure that’s entirely better so still worth limiting, but it’s not sugar, or empty calories)
I'm a sugar addict. I went keto 2 years ago and lost 150lbs. I still need to lose around 30. 90% of our "food" isn't real food. You need meat and veggies. Nothing else. It's hard to stop though. I still gotta have a doughnut at least once a month.
maybe you don't but I do. I was a vegan and I was unhealthy and sick. Switched to mostly ketovore and I'm better in my 40s than I was in my 20s. I was able to stop every medication that I had been taking for 10+ years.
Yes, but there are different types of addiction. I made this comment on another post, but I’ll put it here too:
There’s a big difference between something being psychologically addictive, and something being chemically addictive.
Like, yea, you can technically get addicted to anything. But there’s a massive difference between getting addicted to, say, working out, and getting addicted to nicotine.
So food being chemically addictive is not something that’s been known for decades, in fact it’s been a common topic of debate.
okay 'chemically' vs psychologically is the distinction I was looking for, thanks.
Although if we give science enough time maybe they will arrive at the conclusion that its the same mechanism, 'psychologically' addictive just means a dopamine addiction as far as I know. Its still a chemical.
Been trying Keto for about a week now and I never really noticed my addiction to bread. Not the ordinary sandwich type bread, but the good stuff like naan and pita bread. Crackers and hummus, most soups, BBQ, anything sweet that isn't sucralose-y. I'm making due with the low carb tortillas but it isn't the same.
The only fast food that I can get reliably that fits in the diet is the grilled chicken nuggets at Chick-fil-A.
I do keto yearly to cut weight. Makes portions just very easy for me. For some quick fast food options in a pinch, McDonald's triple with cheese* sans bun (easy to order on mobile), extra pickles/lettuce. Chipotle/Moe's/Qdoba lots of options. I like a double meat salad with fajita veg, cheese, sour cream, salsa of choice, no rice/bean/corn salsa. Wings/salad at lots of pizza joints, verify they're not fried. Panera salads, just check the dressings. Greek restaurants usually have a nice selection of salad or grilled meat and veg options just nix the rice or bread.. and sadly hummus.
Another reliable fast food option is Jimmy John's. Their "un-which" is your sub of choice wrapped in lettuce leaves. The gargantuan un-which is my go-to.
I mean, after three days of not eating I start to get light headed, weak, and irritated. Two weeks, and I'd be near death. So I guess,it is an addiction
Vegans tend to argue cheese addiction via casomorphins. I don't believe its scientific consensus at all this point but I personally believe it's addictive. It was easily the most difficult to rid out my diet.
Can we please stop using the word addiction? No one in online discussion agrees on what it means, so it always ends with angry people screaming past each other.
Imagine being a scientist and not being intelligent enough to come up with a new theory to prove.
Edit It's easy to understand the confusion of the person below me. They don't realize that headlines shouldn't just be clickbait that misleads readers. That's poor science and poor journalism.
Your confusion is easy to understand, given the overly simplistic nature of much science reporting. And how that's especially true with headlines. (I assume you didn't read the article)
But this is claiming that modern food has been perfected, so as to actually trigger chemical dependency. Which is a whole different level from behavioral addiction.