Quote:
Originally Posted by CJZee
This blog article has a great discussion of what might be called "carb addiction" and what can be done about it. |
Good Article - Here is a quote from it:
"If you even briefly entertain the possibility of indulging, you create a state of ambivalence that leads to torment, obsession and cravings. However, when you successfully divert your attention to another rewarding activity you have made a small step toward cooling down the positive valence of the food.
"It is the state of mental torment and ambivalence that increases the positive emotional charge of a food, building and strengthening the neural reward circuitry that causes conditioned overeating. This may be one of the reasons dieting almost always results in long-term weight gain, since constant deprivation makes hyperpalatable foods more difficult to resist and creates severe anxiety.
"Mentally, the best strategy to overcome conditioned hypereating is to develop new, positive associations with food that are independent of palatability–something you care more about than the fleeting reward of overeating."
This is what we are doing at MRC. We are eating from our menus and not even considering the things we used to indulge in (because they are not on our menu), until we get to a 'breaking point' , a special occasion or close to reaching our goal. Then we have to deal with wanting these foods we have been deprived of for so long. If we indulge once, it is so easy to indulge again. It is almost easier to just stay on the menu but that is not practical - we need to learn how to make healthy decisions and not go overboard. That is why MRC offers the year Maintenance I guess - to help us really relearn how to eat. I'm working at it - keep going off the deep end, get back up and go beck to the basics of my menus and start again trying to eat sensibly.
Carb Addiction
