Why is it hard to stick to a diet?

[Bene]

I've been trying to stick to eating only raw. But I just can't seem to hack it.

I mean its just a decision to eat a certain way isn't it? Why is food so addictive????

/rant

[jamesbiz]

Originally Posted by Bene

I've been trying to stick to eating only raw. But I just can't seem to hack it.

I mean its just a decision to eat a certain way isn't it? Why is food so addictive????

/rant

Because people get in over the heads. Why don't you start this week with increasing your raw intake by 10% vs where you started before the diet. Then every week do something like 10% more. So on and so forth. Obviously the number is made up, but that's what your mind is for.
If you go to the gym, do you pick the heaviest weights you can find?

[KazeCraven]

The reason? You've probably been eating mostly cooked food all your life, and your cells are trained to digest and used cooked food at this point. Changing this requires a change in physiology and the body will have withdrawal symptoms, although usually less severe than typical withdrawal symptoms for hard alcoholics or smokers. Thus your body is likely to eject the raw food (read: mostly unusable) and look for cooked food for its nutritional needs. Unless you eat lots of raw food, your body is also going to not get its daily needs, which then drives you to grab cooked food.

Bottomline: you are fighting your hunger drive, and raw food can't satisfy that. Not yet, anyway.

[ginkgo]

Animals live to eat and have sex. That is the joy in life for them. You have the body of an animal so you need to deal with that even though you have a divine soul. I am on the 26th day of my fast on only water. Jesus and Moses fasted for 40 days since they understood what I just told you.

For many people, they live to eat. It is the #1 entertainment like Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter, Valentine's Day and Halloween. Then people eat for more entertainment while watching TV, at movies, at baseball games and any event. Movies make a lot of money on pretzels that cost $5 each and popcorn at $7 each. One cashier at a drugstore was eating a huge bag of cookies while waiting on me. He was around 300 pounds.

[jamesbiz]

How about eating to live? I don't live to eat, yet I'm not a vegan, vegetarian, or anything. Why is eating such an unimportance to you? How about walking outside through nature. Or looking at the stars at night. I mean, even then, I get more entertainment out of that, then from food. Food is just there. It's a part of life, as breathing is a part of life. Sure, some people can hold their breaths for 8 minutes, by mastering their body. As some people can not eat, by mastering their bodies. And even then, as some point, it's easy because you no longer crave food. It's a lot harder to hold your breath, or to even be on a strict diet, then to just not eat. ( In MY experience). I've known more people who have fasted, then those who actually stayed on a diet.

And again, what's wrong with getting enjoyment out of a part of your life? Why is it any worse then people who meditate for hours? You have a real weird view of food....

[YourHumbleNarrator]

One key is to pick something you can stick with. It's not simply a matter of what you're doing, the why matters just as much. Without a strong why it'll be easy to lax your discipline and forget your goals.

After that, determine whether you're best off diving right into it or easing into your desired program. Understand that quitting your old way of doing things will bring harsher resistance than you'd face by taking things slow, but if you take things slow you'll need persistent and disciplined focus to keep with it until you've succeeded.

Third, try to think about it as little as possible. For something to become habit it must become natural to you. When you walk, do you obsess over the way you push one foot past the other, or how your body sways with each step? Most likely you pick somewhere you want to go and your legs take you there and you don't give any thought to how it happened. So find a way to occupy your mind when you're ready to succumb to old programming, or completely clear your thoughts through some meditative practice. Unless it becomes like breathing to you the new pattern won't hold.

[jamesbiz]

Originally Posted by YourHumbleNarrator

One key is to pick something you can stick with. It's not simply a matter of what you're doing, the why matters just as much. Without a strong why it'll be easy to lax your discipline and forget your goals.

After that, determine whether you're best off diving right into it or easing into your desired program. Understand that quitting your old way of doing things will bring harsher resistance than you'd face by taking things slow, but if you take things slow you'll need persistent and disciplined focus to keep with it until you've succeeded.

Third, try to think about it as little as possible. For something to become habit it must become natural to you. When you walk, do you obsess over the way you push one foot past the other, or how your body sways with each step? Most likely you pick somewhere you want to go and your legs take you there and you don't give any thought to how it happened. So find a way to occupy your mind when you're ready to succumb to old programming, or completely clear your thoughts through some meditative practice. Unless it becomes like breathing to you the new pattern won't hold.

lol I obsess on what my body does as I walk, actually.

[Bene]

yourhumblenarrator, that is good advice; thank you. Thanks for everyone else for chiming in as well.

My problem centers around having to deal with an illness. Do I have enough will power to change my food habits, to leave the delicious food, for the sake of healing. The more I change... the more beneficial it is for my healing. (And even if not for overcoming illness... eating healthy gives you a long and happier life!... it is logical)

This isn't just about the food i eat, but also how I eat it. For example it is better to eat food slowly, in a conscious manner and in moderate amounts.

I've tried raw before for 2 months at 70%. My aim was 100%, but from cheating 2-4 times a week that came down. Its ridiculous how addictive food is. I would say cooked/processed food is even more difficult to quit than cigarettes although I've never smoked.

It also makes sense to me that the better we feel emotionally, the less we crave food to cover up the hurt.

Well I guess I am just saying these things for myself.

The crazy thing is I just did a 7 day Ayurvedic detoxing last week and this week I had soda and pizza and ice cream and all sorts of crap. I've done this before after cleansing/fasting. I feel its pretty bad for my body than if I regularly ate this stuff without the cleanses. But I still do it.

I envy some of those people who can eat normally. You know who you are! :-) The ones who say enough is enough. They have a slice of pizza and they are done! But NOT ME! I have to have the whole damn pizza. I am both angry for bad choices and sad that I am angry at myself. :-(

I had stopped eating meat for quite a long time a few years back. But now I am back to having it.

I really need to shift something in my mind.

[Nex]

Originally Posted by Bene

I've been trying to stick to eating only raw. But I just can't seem to hack it.

I mean its just a decision to eat a certain way isn't it? Why is food so addictive????

/rant

"I mean its just a decision to eat a certain way isn't it? "

Food is actually... the pilar in which your body is built. It is not "just a decision".

Diets are hard to stick to, specially when the body asks for something different. If you can't stick to a diet, it might mean your body is asking for something else it could also mean you have withdrawal from negative habits. Though honestly, the first theory is more likely. Think about how humans evolved for zillions of years, they were omnivore for a reason - they could not simply decide what to eat - It is not natural to stick to rules instead of hearing exactly what your body is asking for...

The surprise is that the human body often knows better. Ever wonder why sunny days make most people want a salad while cold days make people go towards carbohydrates?

[Bene]

wow Nex that really makes me want to listen to my body instead of letting my brain decide. I think its called intuitive eating.

[jamesbiz]

Originally Posted by Bene

wow Nex that really makes me want to listen to my body instead of letting my brain decide. I think its called intuitive eating.

Yes, and if you listen to the body, your body will be just like your genes laid it out for it. So if you were meant to be fat, you will be fat. Skinny, you will be skinny. Catch 22 there

[Kasha]

While there are many mental/psychological reasons for failing a diet, I also believe that there are physiological reasons as well.

A raw food diet can be very low in protein and carbohydrates, which are required to repair/maintain muscle tissue and to replenish glycogen stores which I believe give us energy (from research/education and intuition/experience).

I recently did a very taxing workout while fasted (~20 hours). Afterwards, nothing, and I mean nothing....not even a herd of buffalo (!) would have been able to prevent me from eating some carbohydrates. My muscles, already deficient in glycogen, were literally crying for replenishment.

Another example, from my experience, is my sudden, intense craving for tahini following a water fast. After ingesting 1/4 cup of it with my salad, I researched what it contains on the internet....and 'lo and behold', tahini is packed with minerals and amino acids.

A raw food diet on its own never worked for me. Perhaps your body is trying to tell you something as well. I wish you the best of luck in your journey on finding what is best for you :-)

[mark456]

When you start to lose weight, your body naturally wants to eat more because it thinks something’s wrong. It’s not getting the calorie intake it’s used to. That’s down to a hormone called ghrelin that rises when you lose just 1.5 percent of your body weight. That’s only 2 pounds for a 150 pound person. And that hormone sends out “I’m hungry” signals to your brain. The second reason it’s hard to stick to your diet: Stress. A recent study found that stress not only makes people eat more, it pushes them to binge on high-fat, high-calorie foods.

So, here are some hunger-fighting tips, courtesy of Women’s Health magazine:

First, adjust your eating time. If you eat lunch early, and you’re starving and binging by dinnertime, re-train your hunger hormones. In other words, gradually slide your lunchtime back 15 minutes every few days, until y

mark456

[Rose of Cairo]

Hi Bene,

Originally Posted by Bene

I would say cooked/processed food is even more difficult to quit than cigarettes although I've never smoked.

I agree with you, and I have smoked. I quit smoking and I quit cooked food, so I can compare, and for me personally, the cooked food definitely was more difficult to let go of. I'm 100% raw vegan now, but it took me about two years to fully transition. I have even heard that it takes an average of seven years, so, don't beat yourself up.

In 12 Steps to Raw Foods, Victoria Boutenko wrote an entire chapter about how and why cooked foods are addictive. She talks about plenty of toxins and addictive substances contained in various cooked foods, for example opioid peptides and other stuff. Reading about it helped me a lot to understand why on earth I was feeling like a junkie. If you feel addicted to cooked food, I highly recommend this book to you.

Most people are addicted to cooked foods, it's part of our culture and considered normal, that's why they don't notice. You will hear all kinds of rationalizations.

Originally Posted by Bene

wow Nex that really makes me want to listen to my body instead of letting my brain decide. I think its called intuitive eating.

I totally believe that our body is a fantastic system and that it intuitively knows what food is good for it - provided this food remains natural and raw. Our built-in food recognition system isn't designed to eat unnatural, cooked, and processed stuff. It just doesn't work anymore when we feed it such inappropriate things. That's why I totally trust my body when I feel like eating some specific raw foods, but I do NOT listen to it when it tells me to eat chocolate.

You can see it on other animals as well: as long as they eat their natural, raw food, other animals are great at picking exactly what they need. But when you give them addictive, unnatural, processed, human-made food, like sugar, this fantastic system suddenly doesn't work anymore. The horses in my childhood loved sugar, which is just as unhealthy for them as for us. As for the cat here, she loves chocolate. Chocolate is proven to be poisonous for cats. But she eats it every time she can. Her body is just unable to recognize it as a poison, because it wasn't made to deal with such "food".

Neither is ours.

Originally Posted by Kasha

A raw food diet can be very low in protein and carbohydrates, which are required to repair/maintain muscle tissue and to replenish glycogen stores which I believe give us energy (from research/education and intuition/experience).

A raw diet certainly isn't low in carbs. What about fruit? As for protein, it might be low on it according to common standards, but we don't need as much protein as what they say anyway.

[Rose of Cairo]

Originally Posted by jamesbiz

Yes, and if you listen to the body, your body will be just like your genes laid it out for it. So if you were meant to be fat, you will be fat. Skinny, you will be skinny. Catch 22 there

Nobody's genes mysteriously predestine them to be obese. Angela Stokes was morbidly obese. After switching to a raw diet, she lost 160 pounds and now is thin, healthy and happy. Have her genes suddenly changed?

Bene, I wish you the best of luck. Much love to you.

[jamesbiz]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

Nobody's genes mysteriously predestine them to be obese. Angela Stokes was morbidly obese. After switching to a raw diet, she lost 160 pounds and now is thin, healthy and happy. Have her genes suddenly changed?

Bene, I wish you the best of luck. Much love to you.

Never said obese. I said fat. And I"m sorry, but yes, genes predestine some people to be fat. Genes don't care about form, they care about function. Genes don't care that you no longer live where your ancestors lived, and there for required the amount of fat or lack there of, that you have. Having a belly is considered fat for most people, yet almost everyone wants a flat stomach. I have 24% body fat, and while I don't even look close to overweight AT ALL, I consider that fat. My body naturally makes me 24% body fat, even if I eat healthy. A lot of people would not want that. Some people are 5% bodyfat naturally. People do not want to naturally stay what their body naturally wants them to be most of the time, unless they were born to be perfect. If we listen to our bodies, then our bodies will give us the body our genes predestined for us. No one would be happy with how those bodies look, yet everyone keeps saying " listen to your body only"

Oh and as switching to a raw diet, it is not natural in any way( by that I mean, nothing in our history shows we ate like that), then obviously she'd lose fat when she's not eating anything her genes are used to in the slightest.

Next you are going to tell me " no one is morbidly obese, this one woman stopped eating all together, and she lost a TON of weight!" ...

Wait, never mind, there already was a thread, where a lot of people thought how awesome it was that the guy lost 140 pounds because he stopped eating for SIX MONTHS. People said stuff like "SEE, goes to show you how much weight someone can lose on a diet". Duh lol.

[Rose of Cairo]

What I meant is that when some people "listen to their body", they end up obese (or otherwise addicted or sick). That is certainly not what they were "meant" to be, no matter which genes they have. Hence the limits of listening to our bodies while ingesting stuff that our bodies are not built to recognize and deal with in the first place.

[jamesbiz]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

What I meant is that when some people "listen to their body", they end up obese (or otherwise addicted or sick). That is certainly not what they were "meant" to be, no matter which genes they have. Hence the limits of listening to our bodies while ingesting stuff that our bodies are not built to recognize and deal with in the first place.

We can still listen to our bodies and be healthy, but the problems these days is that our bodies don't know what's in processed food. It knows what's in an apple for example, but has no clue what's in fired chicken. Our bodies know what they are doing, but it's just confused is all...

[Brutha]

Making decisions is hard because we aren't rational creatures even when we think we are.

When it comes to the "listen to you body" advice, you can also change what your body says.
Seth Roberts for example recommand to eliminate smell while eating by wearing a nose clip.

A nice post from Seth about the nature of what genes determine: Seth’s blog » Blog Archive » Genes Or Environment . . . Or Environment?

[Bene]

Originally Posted by Rose of Cairo

In 12 Steps to Raw Foods, Victoria Boutenko wrote an entire chapter about how and why cooked foods are addictive. She talks about plenty of toxins and addictive substances contained in various cooked foods, for example opioid peptides and other stuff. Reading about it helped me a lot to understand why on earth I was feeling like a junkie. If you feel addicted to cooked food, I highly recommend this book to you.

I have that book; it was the first raw food book I read. Victoria also divides all people into normal eaters and compulsive eaters. What do you think about this?
Normal eaters can eat just a little bit of a certain food (for ex. chocolate) and stop but compulsive eaters eat more than they need to, for any of various reasons.
When I read this I immediately thought of my dad because he is a completely conscious eater. He never overeats. He eats slowly. And he has total control. I am amazed sometimes. I have a more compulsive tendency unfortunately.

Victoria recommends that for this reason compulsive eaters should eat a 100% raw food diet and not be 80-20 or any ratio because they won't be able to stick to that and will tend to overeat cooked food.

[Rose of Cairo]

Yes, I think it makes a lot of sense.

I have noticed that for me too, it is much easier to stick to a 100% raw diet instead of permanently fighting cravings, wanting to eat cooked foods, but trying to keep the amount of raw food high, etc..

Even Steve, whom I would call very reasonable and in control, said that he prefers to stick to 100% raw because eating cooked foods is too much of a slippery slope.

Maybe you are just more sensitive than your father. Some people can occasionally smoke one cigarette and never get addicted. Some people drink alcohol regularly and never become alcoholics. But for other people this is impossible, they would become dependent. I don't believe this is a matter of discipline or willpower. I think it's a matter of physical sensitivity.

It makes no sense to beat yourself up "Why am I not like my father?!". Obviously you are not, so accept that and go from there.

For me personally, I know that eating cooked food, even a small amount of it, would be shooting myself in the foot, because I *know* that as a result I will have a very hard time sticking to my raw diet. If you are like me, cooked foods only trigger more cravings. The more you indulge, the more difficult you make it for yourself. Every time you eat cooked food again, you reset the whole process of getting used to the raw diet and start anew. It's really easier to go through the weaning off once and for all.

Hope this helps. You're not alone. Love.