Stupid messed-up instincts

[runningfromfat]

I've been working on my eating habits. I started off giving up sugar and that worked really well for me. I still do pretty much no sugar but I don't want to be as strict now. I want to learn control (something I definitely wasn't ready with at the beginning). However, I've noticed if I have anything at all sweet in the house that my first instinct when I'm hungry is to start thinking about it.

Today it was lunch time and I just couldn't stop thinking about chocolate but then I realized I had to eat lunch. I started chanting to myself the mantra "real food first!". Silly, I know, but it worked. I did have a SMALL bit but after eating a real meal and I wasn't tempted to binge. I just hate that after almost a year of doing this that I still struggle with my first instincts going to the wrong types of food. Does this ever go away??????

[carter]

What makes you think this is a messed-up instinct?

There is a reason that sweets and (especially) the fat-sweet combination are so appealing to us poor human beings. There is a reason you have to tell kids that they have to finish their vegetables in order to get dessert.

It's only natural that when you have treats around they would be more tempting than "real food".

You did the right thing here. You gained control over your impulses and ate on plan.

The only thing messed up that I see, is that you are beating yourself up over doing that, instead of celebrating it for the success that it is.

[butterflymama]

Well said carter!

OP you did great! Sugar is a huge binge trigger for me. It is just how my body responds to it. I hope to one day be were you are now. Congrats!

[runningfromfat]

Thanks guys for the support... I'm not sure if I got my question out quite the way I wanted to. I'm not beating myself up over this or anything. I get that sugar+butter i.e. a chocolate bar would be a gold mind in nature so our bodies are very much attracted to them. I also tend to think that because I let myself indulge in chocolate (well, and other sugar) so much over the years that my body's natural response to hunger is sugar. I'm trying to retrain my body to think of food first. Sure, today I did well but some days if my mind isn't 100% I know I do hit chocolate (or whatever it is first). Not something I'm really proud of.

I guess, I was just wondering how long it would take my body to get over this mindset... to think of the foods I need first rather than junk? It's been almost a year and I know I'm still not there. I just am wondering if it ever happens?

[carter]

I'll tell you that for me, it's been almost two years on plan, and I still have to work hard to make the right choices every day - and I'll also tell you that I don't always make the right choices.

I do think you are being hard on yourself. I'm sorry that you are disappointed that the process is still hard, but don't let that negative feeling overshadow your feeling of accomplishment at making a good choice. It's as if you are saying, well that right choice is no big deal, because it's the choice I should make automatically, if I wasn't so messed up.

That's bull! Don't let yourself talk to yourself that way.

How many years of eating habits are you trying to undo? I sometimes see people spout platitudes like "it takes a month to establish a new practice as a habit." I think that's bull too, and people who buy into that stuff are setting themselves up for failure. It takes much more than a month, or a year, to train yourself out of a lifetime's worth of eating habits. Add into it the uphill battle of mind against a body that craves sweets and fats for evo-bio reasons, and you can start to see why it's perfectly normal to still find it hard sometimes even after a year.

Don't be discouraged that it's still hard. Be proud that after a year you still have what it takes to put in the work and make the right choices even when your body doesn't want to cooperate.

[one small bowl]

I am on week 88 and it is easier to stay on plan and make good choices than it was at week 1, but the old inner voice of my binge monster is still there. It sleeps and it wakes up. I know that certain triggers like being stressed, tired, feeling sick and a few emotional upheavals will awaken my beast. I do not think it will ever go away completely, it is there, deeply embedded and lies to me all the time. It likes to convince me that one little bite won't hurt. It lies about the need to eat the very foods I know harm me. The beast likes to be self indulgent and doesn't care about consequences to my health or well-being. The beast likes instant gratification. I know him well.

But I am continuing to learn how to manage that monster, how to keep it from swallowing me up. I hear the lies more clearly now, I understand it's motives. Over time, I listen to it less and less, call it on it's lies and it has less of a voice. It's up to me to manage it or let it rule my life.

I found it a useful tool to give it a name and see it as a part of me, but not my whole self. As in all things, we can be in control of our actions, our eating and our outlook on life.

[caryesings]

Have to agree with carter. I gave up eating candy 6 years ago and STILL have to police myself when it is around. The "crawling up the wall wanting it feeling" did go away after about 4 months, but hasn't disappeared entirely yet.