Quoted: You have to change how you think about food. |
Truth.
Think of the body as a complex piece of machinery. It *needs* certain amounts of literally thousands of different nutrients.
It does NOT need "whatever tastes good" or "whatever you want".
Unfortunately it is impossible live a halfway "normal" American life and eat strictly for pleasure like most people do and:
1) Provide your body what it *does* need,
2) Avoid giving it too many calories, saturated/ hydrogenated fats, sodium, refined carbohydrates, etc -- which convert to fat or cause other malfunctions.
Food "cravings" are strange things, and not inherently good or bad. Vegetarians who become deficient in protein, crave -- protein. People on the stricted form of the no-carb 'Atkins' diet crave fruit and bread. Those are "good" or "necessary" cravings, because they are signals of the body telling us to eat things that are good for its maintenance.
On the other hand, the body (and mind) can develop unhealthy allergic-response type cravings for what is absolutely the worst thing. Exactly like alchoholics *crave* alchohol. The body has developed a haywire, sort of short-circuited response to something.
Cravings indicate that something is wrong, one way or the other.
Our job, as body-owners, is to figure out what is missing and to supply it.
If we have developed a haywire 'allergic'/ addictive type craving for something unhealthy -- (chocolate candy for example) -- probably the worst thing we can do is to eat it.
If we have been under a lot of physical or mental stress and crave something like roast beef, that is probably a healthy signal indicating we need protein. Any form of meat or protein would probably quiet that craving after we eat a moderate amount of it.
But if one has a craving for the chocolate candy, and he eats it, then he will crave more and more of it, getting perhaps sick, but never satisfied.
Cravings mean something is out of whack.
Treat the body like a fine piece of machinery -- not a playground.