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Breaking your food addictions

Last night I ran into a couple of friends I haven’t seen in a few months. One of them commented, “You’re looking fit.” I replied, “Why, yes, I am,” because, you know, why deny it?

Anyway, we started talking about how to go about achieving the level of fitness I’ve achieved — which still has a way to go, I might add — and the first thing I told my friends was, “You have to get your diet right.”

I am not telling you that you need to go vegan, as I recently did — you don’t — but I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “You can’t out-exercise a bad diet.” People seem to know this intuitively, but, still we try, oh how we try.

Our body composition is 75-80% determined by what we eat, so why do we try to find ways to continue to eat our cheese and candy, our burgers and ice cream, our french fries and donuts? The answer is plain and simple: We are addicted to those things.

Oh, sure, when we start running or lifting or aerobicizing, we may go on some kind of short-term eating plan, but that quickly gets kicked to the curb, because, hey, we are working it out, so we can eat whatever we want, right?

WRONG!

Maybe we realize we should eat right, but have a problem determining what “right” is. There is, after all, a lot of conflicting information out there.

While that may be true, if you need to lose 20+ pounds of fat, there are a lot of proven ways to do it: Low Carb, Plant-Based, Low-Fat, Low-Calorie.

(I would caution you — as we’ll discuss below — that working out and eating a low-calorie diet don’t mesh. When you are working out, your body needs more calories, so be sure to adjust your idea of “low-calorie” to include extra food to allow your body to get the proper nutrition. Here’s a cool little calorie needs calculator.)

All you have to do is choose whichever way of eating works best for you and is sustainable.

Sustainable? What’s that about?

Sustainable in this case just means that you can continue eating that way for … the rest of your life!

Diet and fitness are not short-term goals. We’ve all been there, done that, right? We get on a low-calorie diet. If we are determined enough, we hang with it for a couple weeks. We may even think, “Hey, this isn’t so bad. I could keep eating like this.”

Then the trigger events show up — birthdays, holidays — and we reason, “I’ve been so good, it’s okay to let myself go today.” Slowly we see the trigger events become more general — Tuesdays, Saturdays. There’s always some reason to celebrate. Eventually, we give up on [insert your chosen diet here], because life just keeps getting in the way.

If you look at any diet and think to yourself, “I can’t do that forever,” then forget it, because all you will see is short-term weight loss. As soon as you return to your normal diet, you’ll gain it all back — and more.

I remember when I tackled low-carb, I thought, “I can do this forever.” And I could have, until I learned about the health benefits of a plant-based diet. But that’s a subject for another post.

Let’s go back to last night again, when I was talking with another group of friends. Of course, the conversation turned to fitness — without prodding from me, I might add — and we discussed the addictive effects of sugar and cheese, and the convenience factor of fast food.

While I often claim my fitnessquest began in 2007, it really started many years before that with a desire to break my fast food habit. I became a vegetarian just so I could do it — can’t stop for a quick nosh at MacBurgerBell if you’re a vegetarian, right? And it worked!

Fast forward to many years later, when I finally decided to break my sugar addiction. How? I just refused to eat anything that was created to satisfy a sweet tooth. Donut? No thanks. Cinnabon? Keep it. Birthday cake? Happy birthday to you, but get the cake out of my face.

Is that rude? Too bad. This is my health and fitness we are talking about, and I control that, not you.

Eventually, people got the idea, and they saw my results over time.

Let’s say, then, that you buy into this notion of getting your diet in line. Admittedly, this is not an easy task. How can you get it done?

HOW TO BREAK YOUR FOOD ADDICTIONS – TIP #1

When I tell people I’m eating vegan, the first response is almost always: “No cheese?!?!? I couldn’t live without cheese.” If you think that’s true, you are addicted to cheese.

Maybe cheese is not your poison. Maybe it’s sugar that always derails you — 3 or 4 Cokes a day? Maybe it’s too much convenience food — burgers every day for lunch?

Take a good look at how often you eat those foods, and make a plan to scale back.

For example, if you drink 3 or 4 Cokes a day, tell yourself, “I’m not going to drink Coke on Tuesdays and Fridays.” Every couple of weeks, add another day, until you are only drinking Coke 1 day a week. Then cut it back to 2 Cokes on that 1 day. Then 1 Coke. Then none.

If you eat burgers and fries every day for lunch, follow that same kind of plan. It would be nice if you would get yourself a salad on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Or find some decent burger-like patties in your grocer’s freezer and see how you like them. Don’t reject those after 1 bite, by the way. You are accustomed / addicted to beef burgers. Eat 3 or 4 of the non-meat burgers (not all at once) before you decide, “I don’t like these,” then try another brand. Or, better yet, lose the burgers altogether, get  a good cookbook, like Melissa Costello’s Karma Chow Cookbook, and make meals to take with you.

Eventually, and you’ll have to trust me on this, you will break the bad habits.

As anyone who’s quit smoking can tell you, it takes a while. I’ve found that 18 months is about right for me. You may never totally lose the craving, but your body will feel so much better, the cravings become very easy to resist.

HOW TO BREAK YOUR FOOD ADDICTIONS – TIP #2

Understand tip #1? Great. But I know that’s not so easy to implement, if you are battling multiple food addictions, so tip #2 is to work with only 1 addiction at a time.

If you are, as many of us are, addicted to fast food, cheese, and sugar, don’t get all crazy and try to quit all those at once! Are you kidding me? Talk about a recipe for disaster.

I will repeat: Fitness is a life-long journey. You — hopefully — have plenty of time, many years ahead of you. Take it slowly.

Using Technique #1 above, quit fast food.

18 months later — more or less, depending on how you feel — quit cheese (and all dairy, I would recommend).

18 months after that, quit desserts. Then sodas. Then cookies. Then birthday cakes. Then ice cream. (Actually, you may want to add ice cream to the top of the list — that’s what actors always eat when they want to gain weight for a role.) You can add all that sugary stuff to your “I’m not eating it” list in rather rapid order, depending on how determined you are. Don’t rush it, but don’t make excuses to delay it, either.

Okay, that’s it. Easy? No. Worth it? Yes.

HOW TO BREAK YOU FOOD ADDICTIONS – TIP #3 (ESPECIALLY IF YOU ARE WORKING OUT)

Of course, some of you will be working out during the entire time you are breaking your food addictions. I highly recommend that — click on any of the fitness program links on this page to see some great ways to get it done — but keep a few things in mind.

When you work out, you are expending more energy, so your body requires more food. Be prepared for that sensation. It’s somewhat counter-intuitive to us to eat more food when we are trying to lose weight, but when we move more, we have to keep our body fueled. (Here’s that link to the calorie needs calculator again.)

If you are going to eat more food, but less of your addictive foods, you need to find alternative fuel sources. Sure, you can buy protein shakes and other meal replacements, but I would recommend you try to get accustomed to consuming less processed foods and more vegetables and fruits. Not only will this add fiber to your diet, but it will get you on the road to a level of wellness you never thought possible.

Instead of that burger for lunch, have a baked sweet potato with some sriracha sauce and broccoli. Instead of pie for dessert, have a bowl of berries. Sounds weird, right? You’ll be surprised how quickly this becomes second nature.

IN THE FINAL ANALYSIS…

Look, there are several reasons to get fit. One is to simply look better. As we age, though, we find ourselves in touch with just how mortal we are, and getting fit translates into getting healthy. “Looking better” becomes a side effect.

Whatever your fitness goals, whatever your age, you have to realize that fitness is not something you achieve and then have forever. It is a way of life. That is why fad diets are doomed to fail. They are short-term fixes.

To achieve true fitness, you have to be in it for the long haul, and the first step is to get your diet in line by breaking your food addictions.

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Is there really that much difference between “excuses” and “reasons”?

If you look at the successful people around you, you may notice that they are men and women of various colors and walks of life, but there is one thing they all have in common: They get things done.

What does that mean, exactly?

Well, while most of us are sitting around, accepting the reasons we can’t do something, successful people are either ignoring those reasons or working around them.

Please note that I said “reasons” and not “excuses”. I’m sure we all understand the difference between the two.

While we may think that “excuses” are concocted in the minds of lazy people, we look at “reasons” as valid considerations. For example, if you skip running because you have to sit on your butt watching the Gilligan-a-thon on TBS — that’s an excuse. If you skip running because there are hurricane conditions outside — that’s a reason.

The problem with that very valid way of thinking, though, is that there is always a good reason not to do something! Consequently, reasons turn into excuses.

I lived that “reason”able life for a long time, and most of it involved finding time to work out. I always had something else I had to do that would prevent my workout. Because I work for myself, the reasons would usually involve some task I needed to do “right now” for a client. Why did it need to be done “right now”? It’s pretty simple — “work” was higher than “working out” on my priority list.

That’s understandable. A big part of my business model relies on responsiveness to my clients’ needs.

But you know what I discovered when I finally decided to understand that my “reasons” were really “excuses”? My clients could easily wait that extra 90 minutes. After all, it’s not very often that website design, photography, and videography create emergency situations that must be addressed immediately.

None of the examples here may apply to you, so look at your life and evaluate the “reasons” you lose focus of your fitness goals. Are they really good enough to keep putting off your fitness program, or are they simply more excuses for you to stay unfit and unhealthy?

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3 Slices of Toast

If you are eating a low-fat, whole-food, plant-based diet — as I try to do — you really don’t need to count calories. You literally cannot eat too much food on that kind of diet. That’s my hypothesis, anyway, and I’ll stick to it until proven wrong.

But I’ll never get to test my hypothesis on myself, because, seriously, who has time to only eat whole foods? I suppose if you are affluent enough to have a personal chef, that’s cool for you, but I am not, so I end up eating some processed foods, primarily pastas and breads.

I stick with fairly healthful options, such as Ezekiel bread and non-wheat, whole-grain pastas. When I consume those foods, though, I like to apply a bit of portion control, because things can get out of hand rather quickly with processed foods, which tend to be more calorie-dense than the whole foods found in nature.

For example, I often eat Ezekiel toast in the morning. I really enjoy it with a thin veneer of single-ingredient almond butter and some sliced fruit — like strawberries or figs — on top. When I say “I really enjoy it”, I am not exaggerating. I am salivating right now just thinking about it.

In fact, I’ll be back in a bit.

[LATER THAT SAME DAY]

Wow, that was good, but it changed the whole direction of what I was going to say here, so I’m going to roll with it.

I recently wrote a post about “consious eating” and, once again, it’s very apparent that I write these posts as much for myself as I do for anyone else who might be reading them.

As I prepared my Ezekiel toast, I thought, “I am hungrier than 2 slices, but not as hungry as 4 slices. Which should I make, 2 or 4?”

2 or 4. For some reason, probably because I generally use 2 slices of bread to make a sandwich, I eat sliced bread in 2s.

You may have quickly and easily come to the conclusion that if I am hungrier than 2 and not as hungry as 4, then perhaps I should prepare 3 slices of toast. That’s logical, right, and not a reach at all. In fact it’s rather obvious.

But that is why we need to be sure we are eating consciously. It is so ingrained in me to eat bread in groups of 2, that I had to work to figure out that, duh, this particular situation called for 3 slices. I am not saying I stood there over the loaf dumbstruck and mouth-breathing for 20 minutes as my caveman brain processed the data, but the answer did not present itself to me immediately.

Anyway, I made my 3 slices, ate them, and that was just enough food for me.

Most of us are very busy. We have many things that use up our time — jobs, family, even leisure — so we try to save time in other areas, and one of those is food preparation. One great way to save time is to eat processed foods. If we are trying to eat right, we may stick to more healthful alternatives, such as whole-grain pasta and sprouted whole grain breads, instead of the usual versions made with white flour.

Those are good choices.

However, when we eat processed foods — even the “good” ones — we need to attend to how much of these calorically dense items we are stuffing into our faces. We can do this by paying close attention to our habitual tendencies, and consciously eating just the right amount to keep us properly fueled, rather than however much we would eat out of habit.

The moral of the story is this: If you have to eat processed foods, choose them wisely, eat them consciously, and be healthy.

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RECIPE: Roasted Sweet Potatoes, Beets, Apples, and Carrots

I hang out in The Ultimate Reset post-Reset Facebook group, because a lot of the participants are like-minded people, who care about health and fitness, and many of whom also choose to eat little to no animal protein.

Often they will post recipes, or links to them, and this recipe is one I saw — originally posted  in that Facebook group by my friend Suzanne Winkler of GoneVegan.US — that I thought I’d put my own spin on. I almost didn’t try it, because of the apples, which seemed weird to me in a savory dish. And then there’s the cinnamon, which I like, but, again, in a savory dish?

But that is why I like to try things I don’t think I’ll like, because you know what? Sometimes it’s delicious, and that is the case here. Not too sweet and it paired well with some rice and beans.

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 lb sweet potatoes or yams
  • 1 lb beets, any variety
  • 3 medium-sized carrots
  • 3 small gala (or your favorite) apples
  • 1 Tbsp coconut oil
  • 1 Tbsp ground cinammon
  • 1 tsp cumin
  • 1 tsp cayenne
  • salt to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

  1. Preheat oven to 425°.
  2. You can peel the produce if you like. I don’t peel.
  3. Wash and dry all produce, then cut it into good size chunks, about an inch cubed (or larger). They need to be big, because we’re roasting them, so we need them to be large enough to withstand the heat. Don’t obsess about the size, though, because the little crispy bits can be very tasty.
  4. Place all produce into a 1 gallon plastic bag or a large bowl with the oil, and mix well to coat.
  5. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well to coat completely and evenly.
  6. Place everything in a single layer on a large sheet pan and put it into the preheated oven.
  7. Cook for 15 minutes. Flip everything with a spatula, if you care to.
  8. Cook for another 10 minutes.

Makes 2 large servings.

You can experiment with this by using olive oil, green chile powder, or other spices, but I think the cinnamon is the key. I say a tablespoon of it in the directions, but you should really have enough to coat everything thoroughly, so make sure that happens. The aroma while this is cooking is heavenly.

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Conscious Eating

“Conscious eating” — it’s a term that is picking up steam, and it encapsulates a very simple concept: thinking — actually thinking — about what we are putting into our mouths.

Do you think about it, or do you just habitually go to [insert your favorite fast food place here] for lunch every third day? Do you think about it, or do you just buy the [insert your favorite breakfast cereal here]?

“Conscious eating” means knowing what you are eating, thinking about it, and making an informed decision. How many grams of fat are in this? How many grams of sugar are in that? What are the ingredients? Once you know, you can eat consciously.

Eating consciously goes beyond that, though. It also involves taking in what we are told about nutrition and saying, “Hmmmmmm…. Maybe I should explore that further before I accept it.”

For example:

  • All my life I’ve been told that milk is good for me. Now I am not so sure, so I don’t drink it.
  • All my life I’ve been told that the best form of protein for my body is animal protein. Now I am not so sure, so I don’t eat it.
  • All my life I’ve been told that vegetables are good for me. Okay, I think that’s still valid.

I’ve been fed so many lines of crap over the years, from the government and diet gurus alike. Hell, we are all exposed to this stuff, and so many of us buy into the latest diet crazes, whether they involve eating a lot of oatmeal, not eating wheat, avoiding carbs, whatever. Problem is that we need to choose a path and stick to it for a bit in order to see if it works for us.

Nothing drives me crazier than when someone has, for example, high blood sugar. So, they, wanting to take control of their own health — a behavior I loudly and publicly applaud  — start eating a particular way. They give it a shot for 6 months, have a blood panel run, and, oops, their blood sugar is still high.

“I don’t know what else to do,” they say. “My doctor told me to eat this way, but my blood sugar is not improving. I guess I’ll need to take the meds.”

Hmmmm…. I dunno. Maybe, well, just maybe your doctor doesn’t know what she’s talking about? How about that?

“What?” they shout. “My doctor went to med school, which is more than I can say for you!”

Hey, now, come on, think about it. Your doctor went to med school. She learned about diseases and which drugs or procedures to use to treat them. How much did your doctor learn about nutrition in med school?

According to a 2006 study by the NIH (available at http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2430660/)

Ninety-nine of the 106 schools responding required some form of nutrition education; however, only 32 schools (30%) required a separate nutrition course. On average, students received 23.9 contact hours of nutrition instruction during medical school (with a range of 2 to 70 hours). Only 40 schools required the minimum 25 hours recommended by the National Academy of Sciences. Most instructors (88%) expressed the need for additional nutrition instruction at their institutions.

Wow, in that case, I have a lot more nutritional training than your doctor probably has, and I am certainly no expert.

Anyway, the point is that even your chosen authority figure doesn’t have all the answers, so when he gives you advice, think about it. Read and get yourself educated. Try things out on yourself. That is how you figure out what works and what doesn’t work for you.

That’s called “critical thinking” and, getting back to the title of this article, you can apply that same principle to the way you eat. Conscious eating applies critical thinking to how we consume food. Start doing that and your body will love you for it.