Somethin' Ain't Right

[bloodyrosemccoy]

I have discovered an interesting psychological phenomenon of diets.

 

I’m eating pretty well. I’m not sure I’m eating enough. I’m cooking and having salads and having some pretty tasty food and also V8, and overall the diet’s doing okay.

 

Normally when I eat, I don’t miss the things I don’t have.  But just knowing I’m on a diet has made my brain go into overdrive.  In the background of all my consciousness over the last few days has been a running slideshow of cans of frosting, éclairs, Reese’s pieces, Snickers bars, Godiva truffles, doughnuts, and even bread and granola and Pasta Roni. “LOOK!” my hypothalamus is shouting. “LOOK AT ALL THIS FOOD THAT YOU’RE NOT ALLOWING YOURSELF TO HAVE! IT SURE WOULD BE GOOD RIGHT NOW!”

 

“I don’t even like doughnuts,” I point out.

 

“I feel empty inside,” mopes the stomach.

 

I may have to alter this a bit and have a few more carbs, just to shut it up.  Screw Phase One. Phase Two it is.

Comments

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

That is one of the known reasons why diets rarely work. It's human nature to want it if you can't have it. Eating more healthily in general is a good thing. Ruling out -anything- is a sure-fire guarantee that you'll be craving it desperately in 48 hours or less. Even if it's something you normally are indifferent to.

I'm on the "eat less, move more" plan. It works, when I actually manage to do it. :)

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, if you read my earlier post, your plan is my general idea. However, I'm trying to add "eat BETTER" to the plan, and South Beach apparently is good for people with PCOS, so I thought I'd try it like a game. Not so much. Ah, well.

[cjtremlett.livejournal.com]

Eat better is a good characteristic. South Beach evidently is not as nuts as some fad diets, but it's still doing the sort of thing in the cutting out things entirely. I'd say go for a compromise. *g*

I read somewhere that you can get the benefits of a reasonable diet plan by letting yourself cheat on it at a maximum of three meals out of the course of a week. I tried that for a while, and it did help! I should go back to doing something like that, but not with four weeks to go on the semester!

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

That's a what I'd concluded.

South Beach only cuts things out for the first few weeks, so that you get used to fewer refined carbs. (That's what Phase One is. I've already given up on that.) Those are apparently the Weight Loss phases, which isn't really what I'm going for--I'm just going for the Healthy Eating phase.

[shriekingsnape.livejournal.com]

oo. don't completely cut out carbs from your life. you need those. try to eat more complex ones and not as much as simple ones. but don't completely cut them out. you feel empty because it's not healthy for you.

[luinmir.livejournal.com]

Dude. My mom wrote a fuckin' book on the psychological effects of dieting. Check it out. Of particular relevance are the sections on the polar bear effect and the "3-layer brain". (Also of not on this last page is my dog.) A lot of the stuff on the site and in the book are kinda dumbed down in that blithe, women's magazine article way, but the research is solid.

Yeah, I'm kind of embarrassed that my mom went and wrote a diet book. People tend to scoff. But having looked at the research and discussed it with her while she was writing it, I know that there's some really good stuff in there. It's really not about what to eat or what exercises to do and when, it's really about the psychological stuff.

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I thought I'd try this as an experiment, and the plan was to take a template that was considered healthful for my particular metabolism and modify it as I went along. I picked the South Beach for that reason, but the first two weeks are strict and that, of course, gives you the polar bear effect. So I changed the rules from "AVOID THIS AT ALL COSTS" to "try more of this and LESS of that, but you can still have some." That works better.

But I now know EXACTLY what you mean by the scoffing. "I'm working on my diet" makes you sound like some sort of patsy who is following some crazy fad. No wonder Americans are loath to change their lousy eating habits--everyone is convinced that trying to change them by following a "dietary plan" is just foolish.

I may repost this as an entry tomorrow, as a follow up to my rant. But for now, there you go.

[teacupdiaries.livejournal.com]

Haha! I know this feeling so well. :D It's the craving food I don't even like that drives me crazy, too. But my stomach has a mind of its own.

[pixel39.livejournal.com]

The first phase of SB drove me crazy, in no small part because I crave carbs when I'm stressed. I suspect because carbs are energy that you might need to use for fight-or-flight.

But one cannot live by ice cream alone. Even though one sometimes wants to.