hey campbellredhead, I know exactly how you feel. My excuse today was that I had a bad day at work!!! we all make excuses to indulge! and then regret why we ate all the fancy stuff!?!
Sweet food can activate our pleasure center in the hypothalamus and hence I dont blame myself completely to go back again and again. But the best thing to do is may be go have a non-fat ice-cream or lots of water or diet coke!!! I dont know!!!
Since beginning my new lifestyle. I have had these thoughts too. I learned that eating healthy and feeling better is more important than the few minutes of eating the sinfully pleasurable things that I used to crave. It took time but now if I do "cheat", the food doesn't taste as good as I remembered. When I eat the best food for me nutritionally is when I feel the best about myself. I think for a while that I mourned my old way of eating and that it can be normal.
You know, I haven't gotten to anywhere near that point...but I can relate with cigarettes.
I smoked, and prayed that God would help me quit. So one night, about a month later, I had this dream. I was smoking, and my mouth kept filling itself with ashes. Now everytime I even think of smoking, I can taste the ash...even feel it in my mouth, and I'm totally turned off...
I think its more like we miss that guilty pleasure feeling...and being able to submit to it.
I've always loved everything about food. Reading about it, choosing it, preparing it, going to exotic and familiar restaurants, eating, giving and preparing foo for others... My husband is also a foodie, and also over 350 lbs. It has been a struggle not to gain weight in this relationship, and in fact to lose weight. We've both lost weight since meeting, but it has been very difficult and very slow.
Although this is the slowest I have ever lost weight, it is also the longest I have ever kept on a descending trend. It really does involve finding other things to enjoy as much as food, and finding different ways to enjoy food and doing it permanently. Otherwise, at least for me, it means eventually going off of a diet (and regaining) in order to experience that "joy" again.
I still enjoy food as much as I ever have, but I am retraining myself in how I go about it. I've given up (well, I'm learning to anyway) the "joy" of binging. It's easier to give up the "big pleasures," with lots of small pleasures. Part of the reason I binge, is frustration with deprivation. If I don't feel deprived, it takes some of the power, and even the "joy" out of a binge for me.
We're really lucky that our town has gotten two wonderful, and for the most part, reasonably priced, health food groceries, three or four nice asian groceries, and a mexican grocery. In the summer, we also take advantage of farmers' markets, so that we can buy food that tastes great and is good for us. We have a large asian population (mostly Hmong, south east asian - their food is somewhat similar to Thai and Laotian), and it's fun to talk to the Hmong ladies about the veggies and herbs they are selling and how to prepare it. I just learned that while I hate European eggplant, I love asian eggplant (the Hmong lady selling the baby potatoes my husband loves, gave one to me to try, and she told me that it is much sweeter and easier to cook than the big purple monsters I was familiar with. And boy was she right, I stir fried it with some onion and zucchini and it was great).
I look forward to July every year, because it is Ranier cherry season. They're $3 a pound at the farmers' markets ($6 at Walmart for ones that aren't as nice), and available for only 3 weeks. I eat them like crazy for those three weeks (sometimes until I regret it), and then they're gone.
I love pizza too, but I realized that a really good pizza sauce was my favorite part, so I make french style green beans in tomato sauce (it was a side dish my grandmother made that was so great with a little bacon, onion and tomato sauce). I use only one slice of bacon instead of the four she used to use, and eat it as a main dish over a baked potato instead of a side dish. If I'm really craving pizza I will add pizza seasoning and sprinkle a little fresh asiago cheese on top (it has a strong parmesan romano type flavoring so a little goes a long way).
For me the only way to stay on a healthy eating plan is to make it enjoyable. In many ways, it is more fun (though definitely more of a challenge at first) to eat this way, than to always have to choose between deprivation and guilt.
I've always had a love hate relationship with food... loved eating it, smelling it, tasting it.... hated the way it made me look & the way I felt afterwards.
I totally hear you!!!! I love every aspect of food. Right now I am at work and I think, what if I only ate a few chips with a little bit of dip, would it really be so bad but if I give into that then the next time I have the urge then I'll have a harder time resisiting so I just can't allow myself. I've lost 10lbs in 2 weeks and I won't jeopordize that in any way. It's hard to distract myself here at work but I have to remember how good I'll feel tomorrow when I know I made a good decision. I miss food. I was thinking today how a sub with chicken, tomatoes, onions, garlic, some kind of creamy sauce and lots of melted cheese would taste sooooo gooooodddddd!!!!!!! But then I'll be mad at myself for doing it so I can't can't can't. Hang in there, don't let yourself obsess about it, change your thinking. Call a friend or do anything to change your thoughts. I'm there with you, I understand cause I feel it too.
I hear you on the mourning part. I was going out to a happy hour with some friends, and was sad about the fact that I couldn't have 4 beers and eat all of the junky bar food that everyone would order (nachos, chicken wings, jalapeno poppers, chicken strips, mozzarella sticks). I was actually missing the total obliviousness (if that's a word) and the not caring/not having to think about food attitude. I would just mow down on everything I wanted and not feel guilty or bad about what I was doing. Now I have to think, and I have to plan and be conscious of my actions, and feel bad when I screw up....I think I miss having my head stuck in the sand!
I tell ya what's more fun than eating - shopping. I don't have the money to shop like I want to, but I love taking 5 gorgeous size 6 dresses into the Ann Taylor dressing room and trying them on. They all look great and the joy is far greater than any joy I ever got out of a pint of Haagen Daaz.
Eating isn't fun anymore-i feel like i'm kinda mourning my overeating, and all
But then I'll be mad at myself for doing it so I can't can't can't. Hang in there, don't let yourself obsess about it, change your thinking. Call a friend or do anything to change your thoughts. I'm there with you, I understand cause I feel it too. 
