Food Psychology
Food psychology sounds like such a BS term and honestly, I’m not a big believer in falling into the path of using a lot of BS terms that are created for no reason! However, I will say that there are a lot of people out there with a number of degrees and very prestigious writings and works in the nutrition and fitness industry they speak a lot on food psychology and when things are OK and not OK. The examples I am thinking of are certain situations of fitting things in to a macro-based diet plan such as a doughnut, candy bar, sugary candy, or things that you really enjoy. Most of these people that have done these prestigious writings or works in the nutrition realm write about these things HOWEVER VERY FEW OF THEM HAVE EVER BEEN SUBSTANTIALLY OVERWEIGHT (100+ pounds) and they don’t deal with issues on food psychology to the same scale as someone that has reached that level of obesity. The term I always use is the “shark with blood in the water feeding frenzy” that tends to occur at moments where you have a bite of a doughnut, one potato chip, one piece of sugary candy, or one beer. The feeding frenzy phenomenon definitely exists when you’re trying to lose a lot of weight and you do not have the best relationship with food to begin with. In my personal experience I know for a fact if there are certain foods available to me I CANNOT HAVE A TASTE OR SINGLE BITE OF IT without it triggering a feeding frenzy situation.
THERE IS HOWEVER GOOD NEWS! In personal experience I have seen some of these foods that used to be trigger foods become a non-issue once my weight has been down (where it needs to be) and I no longer have to be 1,000% restrictive (not have some of the goodies on occasion). For somebody that is 105 pounds and has never had to drop 60-100lbs no matter what degree they have whether it’s a masters, doctorate, or whatever in nutrition they cannot truthfully sit there and tell you that it’s OK to just have one donut and take it out of your calories. They can’t tell you that it’s OK to just have one little bag of chips and then take it out of your calories! On paper….. YES YOU CAN HAVE JUST 1 SINGLE DONUT, ONE SERVING OF POTATO CHIPS, ONE SERVING OF SUGARY CANDY, OR ONE BROWNIE BUT…. THIS IS ON PAPER! Yes weight loss is a calorie equation. Simply put burn more calories than you take in and the body has to consume energy from stored sources (amino acids in muscle tissue, glycogen stores in muscle cells & the liver, or stored fat stores). ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS BURN MORE THAN YOU CONSUME….. But if you have one bite of a food that causes you to go off the deep end and eat the entire house then how can you expect to make the progress you are shooting for? If you can’t consume these foods as if you’re a robot (have that one serving and that makes you content) and that one bite triggers you to go into binge mode then that food needs to be eliminated from your food selection.
Balance is the key to everything yes but the fact of the matter is often times to find balance do you have to be unbalanced in the direction of progress for a pretty good amount of time in order to EARN the opportunity to be flexible enough to CREATE BALANCE!
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