I've had to cut out grains, sugar, and dairy in the past few months for digestive reasons. I'm a recovered anorexic and bulimic who still suffers from occasional food obsession and binges.
I eat very healthy. Whole, unprocessed foods with the occasional indulgence thrown in. (I'm human, and I want to live in the real world.) I workout regularly, including weight training, high intensity cardio, snowshoeing, hiking ...
If I eat a healthy, well balanced diet without refined carbs, (sugar) I'm o.k. But anxiety, depression, and life circumstance can trigger binges more than food. And yes, when I do binge, I go for highly refined sugar products because that's what my brain wants.
I have studied this stuff for a very long time to try to heal myself. There are physiological, addictive problems with certain types of food. Mostly refined, high sugar, high fat, high salt foods. They trigger the reward centres in our brains, just like an alcoholic or drug addict. Some of us are more susceptible than others.
Eating whole foods balances your brain. When we are chemically and hormonally balanced, through proper nutrition, we are less likely to suffer the addiction of food.
But I have to be very careful about restriction, too! It's more important for me to give my body what it needs (keeping it healthy, of course) than restricting and depriving myself. This causes obsession and the uncontrollable urge to binge.
So you may have curbed your brain's appetite for those types of food. I agree that you could possibly be in the early, excitement, stage. Being conscious and aware are crucial elements in adopting successful eating behaviours.
Also, you can't beat intense exercise for balancing your brain chemicals.
Good Luck. Sounds like your on your way to finding your fit. Congrats!
When a diet is low enough in carbs, the hunger definitely recedes to a more normal level. It makes one think less about food. But whether it helps reduce the impulse to binge, I don't think so. Bingeing is usually not about food at all. To stop bingeing takes a change of mind, better coping skills and dedication to one's eating plan as an overall lifestyle change. Yes, sugar and grain based carbs are very addicting, just removing them from one's diet can soon prove to help appetite return to normal.
When I low carbed back in the late 90's, it was a diet to me. I could go a long time without bingeing, but would eventual succumb and dive into all the "forbidden" high carb foods. My mindset at the time was that it was a restricted diet and I missed and wanted all the foods I did not eat. This was part of the binge mentality. The foods I restricted lured me and I did not resist.
Years later, when I found out I was a diabetic, I realized that to stay off of medication and regain my health, I needed to eat low carb. My mindset changed from it just being just another type of diet to being my recovery. Then it clicked. I had a choice to keep up the cycle of bingeing and dieting or I can stop it all together and just eat in a way that best benefited my own body.
For me, bingeing is over with. The impulse to eat the crap that worsens my diabetes and all the awful complications that can come with it, is simply not worth it. I wished I had realized back then that I could have prevented this disease had I stayed low carb all along.
I am grateful that the ketogenic level of my low carbing is helping me keep hunger at bay and that it keeps my blood sugar numbers in the normal range. I feel so terrific, so healthy and vibrant. Like I said, bingeing is over with. But that was a decision I made, not prevented by low carb.
Years later, when I found out I was a diabetic, I realized that to stay off of medication and regain my health, I needed to eat low carb.
My husband and I have talked about how a diabetic diet is the best diet for someone to follow. Even if they are not diabetic. This is something that was even talked about during his schooling. (He's a physician assistant, which is a masters in science)
We would both recommend it to anyone that needed guidelines to lose weight or eat healthier for less craving / stable blood sugar levels. I try eat following ADA diet.
Eating low-carb makes a HUGE difference for me when it comes to binging behavior. It's like night and day for me.
I am maintaining now (lost the weight on Atkins) but my main challenge is dental work that has made it difficult for me to chew and I still have about 3 procedures to go through before I'll be able to chew fairly normally again. But.....I have been literally living on a very limited menu of scrambled eggs, carb-free meatloaf and turkey/chicken burgers (easily chewed low carb foods)....simply because I do not want to have to go back to the **** I'm in when I eat simple carbs. I not only cannot control binging when I eat them but I don't feel well and it takes a significant toll on my health/daily functioning.
And as far as the psychological component goes....this is how it is for me. I CAN use will-power and self-control with psychological urges but I cannot do it when I am physically ravenous. And I would become more and more ravenous, the later it got.....until my brain was screaming for sugar, drowning everything else out and I could not sleep until I sated the hunger.
With low-carb, I don't have that ravenous hunger....and without that, I can control any urges I have to binge for psych reasons....because I'm bored, because I'm stressed, etc. As long as I have a way to control the severe hunger, I can handle and control the rest.
However....that's just me and not necessarily the same situation as others. I am a true carb addict....ALL of my cravings, esp. at night, are always for sugar....never salt or savory. And I would shovel it in (cookies, etc.) as fast as I could, as if gulping for oxygen after I could not breathe. And then I would become full....but would continue to eat mindlessly...just because I was enjoying the taste.....and probably also due to feeling guilty for having inhaled them in the first place....and a little "heck, I blew it so might as well eat the rest".
And even one cookie....or one brownie, etc....and I'm already in trouble. I have to not only eat low-carb but have to avoid simple carbs altogether. It seems to be all or none with me....like an addiction or alcoholism....I have to totally abstain....or I'm starting to head down a bad road.
I also feel that I have fewer cravings and don't get that ravenous feeling when I am eating low carb. Just be aware that if you stay too low carb for too long you can cannibalize lean muscle mass making it easier to gain weight in the future. Or even gain weight doing something that made you lose previously.
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I wonder why that would be, considering that when you're low carb, your eating lots of muscle building meat?
