Food Cravings & How to program your mind and body to eat “healthy” year around:
Honestly, I believe the most important factor in “self control” in regards to food, is understanding why you crave certain foods to begin with.
A few factors to consider that keep me and the people I work with away from junk:
1. Unhealthy Foods are specifically designed to hijack your brains reward centers which makes you crave them. Sugar, artificial flavors, the combination of carbs and fats and the texture of the food all contribute to making these foods as asdictive as possible. Its a fact that Junk food companies actually spend millions of dollars in research, to find what combinations of addictive food properties can hook the most amount of people onto their foods. Knowing this, Its pretty easy to view these foods as “drugs” which makes it easier to understand why People are so hooked on this stuff.
2. Your bodies taste buds and gut bacteria adapt to what ever foods you eat consistently for periods of time. If you cut all junk food entirely for 2-4 weeks straight, the physical cravings go away. (But you can also have emotional and psychological cravings). This also means if you eat abocados, steak & sweet potatoes with tons of butter every single day for 1 month like I do, your body will adapt to this and you’ll begin carving these foods more instead. Even if you think vegetables are disgusting (like Token unfortunately), you could actually train your body to crave them over time. Knowing this, it makes it incredibly easy to make dietary changes that you know will benefit your life in a miltitude of ways, and avoid the ones that will only contribute to disease and feed cravings.
3. Know what you want, and align your actions to your goals. If you want to avoid chronic diseases, all you have to do is avoid the foods that cause them. Avoiding inflamatory foods (like cheetos) is the single best way to prevent chronic diseases. It’s a scientific fact that people don’t hear enough about. Moderation is not key here, because as long as you keep these foods in your diet you’ll continue to crave them. Also, even a little each day can build health problems over the long run. If a food causes disease, it’s really not food to me, its fuckin poison. These foods also bog down the bodies energy, cause brain fog, sleep problems, sexual dysfunction over time, and make people feel like crap. But people don’t even realize it because theyve been eating this way all their life. Knowing these foods contribute to disease, and make people feel like crap, it’s extremely easy to avoid it. I don’t have time to be bogged down by foods that dont benefit me.
4. Its a waste of money. Why spend $2 on a bag of cheetos, when i can spend $3 on a pound of ground beef? The cheetos are going to make me feel horrible, and contribute to weight gain and disease, and the ground beef is going to make me feel energized, fuel muscles and keep my six pack. Obviously one is worth my money and the other is an absolute waste of money. Why would I waste my money on anything that doesn’t actually benefit me in any tangible ways? I wouldnt. But most of society will, and thats why their sick, lethargic, depressed and unsuccessful in many ways.
So those are just a few factors that make it incredibly easy to almost nevvvvver eat that bullshit. Even on thanksgiving, i ate my normal healthy diet. And i did eat one peice of my moms home made pie, but then i remembered immediately afterwards that the 5 minutes of pleasure eating that pie wasn’t even that significant. The pleasure is temporary. Made me even more motivated to eat my normal diet.
Honestly, I believe the most important factor in “self control” in regards to food, is understanding why you crave certain foods to begin with.
A few factors to consider that keep me and the people I work with away from junk:
1. Unhealthy Foods are specifically designed to hijack your brains reward centers which makes you crave them. Sugar, artificial flavors, the combination of carbs and fats and the texture of the food all contribute to making these foods as asdictive as possible. Its a fact that Junk food companies actually spend millions of dollars in research, to find what combinations of addictive food properties can hook the most amount of people onto their foods. Knowing this, Its pretty easy to view these foods as “drugs” which makes it easier to understand why People are so hooked on this stuff.
2. Your bodies taste buds and gut bacteria adapt to what ever foods you eat consistently for periods of time. If you cut all junk food entirely for 2-4 weeks straight, the physical cravings go away. (But you can also have emotional and psychological cravings). This also means if you eat abocados, steak & sweet potatoes with tons of butter every single day for 1 month like I do, your body will adapt to this and you’ll begin carving these foods more instead. Even if you think vegetables are disgusting (like Token unfortunately), you could actually train your body to crave them over time. Knowing this, it makes it incredibly easy to make dietary changes that you know will benefit your life in a miltitude of ways, and avoid the ones that will only contribute to disease and feed cravings.
3. Know what you want, and align your actions to your goals. If you want to avoid chronic diseases, all you have to do is avoid the foods that cause them. Avoiding inflamatory foods (like cheetos) is the single best way to prevent chronic diseases. It’s a scientific fact that people don’t hear enough about. Moderation is not key here, because as long as you keep these foods in your diet you’ll continue to crave them. Also, even a little each day can build health problems over the long run. If a food causes disease, it’s really not food to me, its fuckin poison. These foods also bog down the bodies energy, cause brain fog, sleep problems, sexual dysfunction over time, and make people feel like crap. But people don’t even realize it because theyve been eating this way all their life. Knowing these foods contribute to disease, and make people feel like crap, it’s extremely easy to avoid it. I don’t have time to be bogged down by foods that dont benefit me.
4. Its a waste of money. Why spend $2 on a bag of cheetos, when i can spend $3 on a pound of ground beef? The cheetos are going to make me feel horrible, and contribute to weight gain and disease, and the ground beef is going to make me feel energized, fuel muscles and keep my six pack. Obviously one is worth my money and the other is an absolute waste of money. Why would I waste my money on anything that doesn’t actually benefit me in any tangible ways? I wouldnt. But most of society will, and thats why their sick, lethargic, depressed and unsuccessful in many ways.
So those are just a few factors that make it incredibly easy to almost nevvvvver eat that bullshit. Even on thanksgiving, i ate my normal healthy diet. And i did eat one peice of my moms home made pie, but then i remembered immediately afterwards that the 5 minutes of pleasure eating that pie wasn’t even that significant. The pleasure is temporary. Made me even more motivated to eat my normal diet.