stop avoiding food i love

joasia · Post by **joasia** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 3:00 am

I think one of the many reasons diets have failed for me in the past is the avoidance of so called fattening food. When I feel deprived I binge. Tomorrow I will order a pizza. And enjoy it on one plate. Believe it or not this is a break through for me. I either deny or I go ape wild.

Sinnie · Post by **Sinnie** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 1:14 pm

Hey milczar, I know what you mean and you really have to let go of the diet mentality. I've been working on doing that for years so I'm at a point with No S that I eat 'fattening' foods all the time. I had pizza last week and let me tell you it was to die for.

I use real butter all the time (used to use light margarine, how awful), I will drink higher fat milk but my sister prefers skim so I let that one slide. I actually grew to prefer skim b/c I've been drinking it for sooo long that it's hard to let go.

But all in all, I don't use anything diet anymore - not even cream cheese.

You'd be surprised how much LESS you eat when you eat the real stuff which has more fat. Fat is satiating and keeps you full for a long time. Just balance it out, maybe have a salad is possible with the pizza. But if not, no biggie, I just had the pizza last time. No harm done

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Sat Feb 10, 2007 3:36 pm

I'm not going to go so far as to say that I don't think there are any bad foods, because I certainly think there are. Most of them can be found at any convenience store or gas station or in the middle or freezer sections of our grocery stores. But some of the things we've been taught are bad -- aren't! Oh, maybe we shouldn't eat them day in and day out, but now and then, not bad. While I know a number of people would highly disagree with this, it's as important to feed your soul as it is to feed your body. We've been taught (and we've bought) that getting pleasure from food is wrong, but it's something that has served others well over time.

silverfish · Post by **silverfish** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 3:20 am

The only bad foods are the ones that are "off" or almost entirely synthetic. I frequently tell my friends off for saying something is "so bad". It isn't, food can't do anything wrong, it can't disobey any laws! It is only a bad food if it has "gone bad" or never was a food to start with.

I'm starting to keep an eye out for what I suppose is mindless eating - to only eat for two reasons (1) to keep body and soul together and/or (2) because I really, really like the taste. Not just because it's there. A bit like William Morris' advice- "Have nothing in your homes that you neither know to be useful or believe to be beautiful," but change the first five words to "Put nothing in your mouths..."

Within the system, it is a very useful concept (though like most things, without a system it will fail as a precept!)

joasia · Post by **joasia** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 4:02 am

When I said "bad" I meant fattening. I started dieting in the 90s. You know when anything with more than one gram of fat was terrible. And I have come to realize if I don't eat food with fat I get really hungry and binge. So I am going to allow myself food like "pizza". But I try to eat a good quality gourmet pizza with fresh ingredients. Rather than something that has a crust full of hydrogenated oil.

wosnes · Post by **wosnes** » Sun Feb 11, 2007 12:16 pm

One way I've found to get a healthier pizza (and many other things) is to buy from local establishments rather than chains or anything frozen at the grocery. I've noticed that a lot of these establishments will advertise or mention on the menu that their food is made by hand, from scratch -- so no weird additives, less healthy oils and such.

The owners of one local establishment I frequent have pointed me to a number of others -- including a pizza place with some of the best pizza I've had in years!

I've noticed that there's a real trend or movement here for local establishments to support other local establishments (especially in the food industry). Local restaurants are using products from local growers, producers and packagers as much as possible. At the end of the day, it's a plus for the consumer -- we get better tasting, higher quality food and support local business owners.

Back to the fat...I think we have to unlearn a lot of what we learned about fat in the 90s. We need to pay more attention to the kinds of fats rather than the use of them. It doesn't mean we can go wild with fat, but it's not to be feared across the board.

Back in the 90s I followed a program that allowed fat-free dairy products. I could deal with skim milk, but fat-free cheeses, cream cheese and sour cream, for instance, were another matter entirely. It wasn't so much the taste, it was the texture. I decided that I would rather have the real deal now and again than the fat-free version more often. Another problem for me was that I didn't know what they replaced the fat with!

I've also eliminated fat-free or low-fat salad dressings from my diet. I use full-fat salad dressings. Most are vinaigrettes and I make them, but I've made others, too, but not as often.