Originally Posted by time2lose:
I have not had time yet to read the entire thread but just want to throw this out.

I try to remember that food will be pleasure for a very short time, literally minutes for me. The pleasure that I get from having a mobile healthy body lasts much longer!

Really good food is a pleasure for much longer than a few minutes. So long as you don't have it every day. I mean if i were a rich person and could afford to eat in top restaurants all the time, that could be the case and then it wouldn't be so memorable.

Actually i forgot to include in my France post, the reason i decided to go to France in the first place was because i had done a few trips to India and i was so over chilli. Food in india is tough tough tough if you don't like chilli very much and if, like me you tend to go to out of the way places and not say in the tourist hot spots like Goa or the big cities. So i needed to go somewhere where i knew the food would be good wherever i went.

Originally Posted by Wannabeskinny:
If there's a place I'm dying to go to its on special occasions like birthday, anniversary or other celebration. I make reservations, I'd never wait in a line!

People don't have to cook to be foodies. Anyone who enjoys well crafted food can be a foodie. On the other hand I've never understood people who don't cook. If I don't cook then what would me and my family eat? Take out? Sandwiches? Frozen or pre packaged food? What do people who don't cook eat?

I always wonder that too!

I love to cook - I had a short lived catering business after college. Unlike you, however, I don't grocery shop often. I wish I could, but it's not feasible because of time and budget constraints. At the very least, I've found that batch cooking gives me the time and budget allowance to eat what I want.

Food IS pleasure :D No food taste better than the food that comes from my kitchen. Healthy food that is good for the body can be prepared in ways that will give me food-gasms. Food can be good for you and pleasurable at the same time. Shoot, I have taste buds for a reason. ;)

Originally Posted by Olivia7906:
Healthy food that is good for the body can be prepared in ways that will give me food-gasms.

My (grown) childrens' favorite expression when they eat something that tastes great. It always amuses me when they do. Thanks for the chuckle!

Originally Posted by Wannabeskinny:
If there's a place I'm dying to go to its on special occasions like birthday, anniversary or other celebration. I make reservations, I'd never wait in a line!

People don't have to cook to be foodies. Anyone who enjoys well crafted food can be a foodie. On the other hand I've never understood people who don't cook. If I don't cook then what would me and my family eat? Take out? Sandwiches? Frozen or pre packaged food? What do people who don't cook eat?

Try Doughnut Plant and Tiny's Sandwich shop, I used to work close to there.

I would not be happy if my WOE did not allow me to have food experiences once in a while that do not meet my regular food guidelines. I would not have been happy at the Outback if I'd had to cobble together a meal, possibly special-ordered, that would meet my normal eating criteria. More importantly, it would be impossible for me to indulge in my very favorite food experience, which is cart service dim sum, ordinarily associated with some celebration event.

I can integrate experiences like that into my WOE once in a while without gaining weight overall but not too often. I currently seem to be able to get right back on track with my WOE after such an event, which hasn't always been the case.

Other than the social food experiences, I don't seem to run into any cravings, though I do sometimes trigger my hunger by accident by eating more starchy carbs than I can handle. Some things I eat often enough and other things just never come up as something I want.

I've actually become MORE of a foodie since I've cleaned up my act. Partly because I'm traveling a lot more (my bf and I love to try new restaurants when we're in our favorite cities), and partly because my palate has gone beyond "pasta". Seriously, when I ate out, that's all I had.

Even in my cooking I've expanded significantly. I love food, but now, I love the TASTE of it, not just the feeling I get from it.

Originally Posted by Radiojane:
I've actually become MORE of a foodie since I've cleaned up my act. Partly because I'm traveling a lot more (my bf and I love to try new restaurants when we're in our favorite cities), and partly because my palate has gone beyond "pasta". Seriously, when I ate out, that's all I had.

Even in my cooking I've expanded significantly. I love food, but now, I love the TASTE of it, not just the feeling I get from it.

Haha, I used to ONLY EVER order fettucine Alfredo or whatever was closest to that. Life is better when you are more open to trying new things!

Originally Posted by krampus:
Haha, I used to ONLY EVER order fettucine Alfredo or whatever was closest to that. Life is better when you are more open to trying new things!

Yes, it's true! I'm starting to believe that there are 2 of Me. The foodie me who likes to cook, grow herbs, make things from scratch, cook high quality ingredients like duck breast, scallops, lamb chops, organic produce and specialty items like real parmigiano instead of the stuff in the green box, I have $40bottle of balsamic vinegar, and keep my freezer full of home made fish, beef and chicken stocks, and have a jar of coveted saffron from morocco. I love high end food. Then there's the Bingy-me, who likes fast food drive thrus and frozen waffles. It makes no sense. But the more I start enjoying my food the less I've craved that junky stuff - not because I've tricked my body or gone through withdrawl. But because I can choose what satisfies me most.... this seems counterintuitive but I find myself craving more and more delicious healthy stuff than I ever did when I was forcing myself to eat salads. Now I want a salad because it hits the spot, before I was eating a salad only so that I could gloat that I ate a salad.

There's a lot of good food out there and now that I'm not limiting myself the choices are becoming a lot easier to make.

Originally Posted by Wannabeskinny:
But the more I start enjoying my food the less I've craved that junky stuff - not because I've tricked my body or gone through withdrawl. But because I can choose what satisfies me most.... this seems counterintuitive but I find myself craving more and more delicious healthy stuff than I ever did when I was forcing myself to eat salads.

Yep. When I first gave myself permission to eat anything I want I went to the grocery store and got all the junky food that I had not allowed myself to have. Frozen chicken nuggets, fries, ice cream, candy, chips, frozen appetizers, anything and everything I had wanted to eat for the past several years but had not allowed myself to because it wasn't healthy.

95% of it has remained untouched. I have a quart of premium rich chocolate ice cream that is becoming freezer burnt. Why would I eat a frozen slice of pizza when I am craving a juicy grilled chicken breast with a little bit of brie and a fresh salad? If I'm craving pizza I'll walk to downtown and get a slice of fresh pizza that was made in a real pizza oven with fresh mozzarella and toppings.

That is so true, we don't have to treat food like it's the bad guy. It didn't just get up and hop into our mouth on it's own! We put it there. But food can still be a pleasurable and enjoyable experience for us all, just as long as we stick with portion sizes and watch what we eat. We can still eat what we want, but just in moderation. And i know that that phrase has been tossed around for so long but it really is true. Eat what you want, but only in small sizes, because then you'll be more grateful for the chance to indulge and you'll enjoy it even more than usual if you eat it only every so often. Food is one of the greatest joys in life, just make sure it doesn't rule over your world.:cool:

Originally Posted by Wannabeskinny:
It doesn't have to be pleasure, but it doesn't have to be torture either. There are many things that bring us pleasure and food is just one of them.

The problem with not seeing food as potential pleasure is that all the people in our lives will do anyway. I don't want to be the girl who brings her own lunch to a picnic. I don't want to eat before I go to a party. I don't want to watch other people enjoy food while I can't. I don't want to feel like I'm powerless in front of food, like I can't meet my friends out for drinks and dinner. I'm a social creature and social functions serve food. I have to learn to live in peace with that.

Whatever works for you! That is the only way to go.

For me, I WANT TO BE THAT PERSON. When I "fall off the wagon" and eat the lunch that is available at the picnic, eat at a party, join in on the festivities etc, I AM MISERABLE. I feel powerless like that, like I have to forcefully join. I am a huge fan of being powerful over myself, and part of that is making my own rules and marching to my own drum.

Originally Posted by RareandUnknown931319:
That is so true, we don't have to treat food like it's the bad guy. It didn't just get up and hop into our mouth on it's own! We put it there. But food can still be a pleasurable and enjoyable experience for us all, just as long as we stick with portion sizes and watch what we eat. We can still eat what we want, but just in moderation. And i know that that phrase has been tossed around for so long but it really is true. Eat what you want, but only in small sizes, because then you'll be more grateful for the chance to indulge and you'll enjoy it even more than usual if you eat it only every so often. Food is one of the greatest joys in life, just make sure it doesn't rule over your world.:cool:

That may well be your own experience but if you read through the posts in this thread you'd see that it does not apply well to everyone. I'm not trying to pick on you, but something that sounds as innocuous as "everything in moderation" can seem to dismiss someone's repeated failures to do just that. Similarly, people who embrace restrictions sometimes say things that can be very hurtful to people who are attempting IE (who are probably in the small minority). It's hard to get used to avoiding generalizations, but with such different approaches, it's worthwhile so we can all learn from each other and consider the potential of alternative approaches. I've certainly learned a lot from the threads I've read on 3fc, and a number of the micro-strategies in my WOE come straight from the diverse experience of this site.

This thread has contributions from folks at both ends of the restriction spectrum experience, and I'm delighted that posters have been making a huge effort to put their opinions into the context of their own experience. When people speak in generalizations that seem to target advice at everyone, individuals who have incompatible experience can feel dissed or oppressed. Given the diverse sets of experience, it's amazing to me that the folks on 3fc get along as well as they do.

Originally Posted by magical:
I hate cooking and I don't understand why some people (many of my friends) can drive over an hour to a restaurant they fancy just to eat there or to queue up for ages to eat at a particular place.

I have happily joined those lineups on many occasions.:)

F.

whistling past the graveyard
 

Food is many things to many people. If you are allergic to peanuts, peanuts are lethal. If you are diabetic, high amounts of carb rich foods can send you into keto-acidosis. If you have celiac, gluten can make you extremely ill. If you are a recovering alcoholic, vanilla extract can trigger a relapse. The list goes on.

Recent research & traditional wisdom alike acknowledge that mind/body is an arbitrary separation. Addictive behavior, including food addiction, has both biochemical & psychological components. Different foods and WOEs have unique consequences for each one of us. Saying that food is just food sounds more like wishful thinking, imho. As yoyoma pointed out, it's amazing 3FCers get along as well as we do given our diversity of experience.