Getting over addiction... To junk food!!

Clean eating is the key to a healthy body, healthy mind and esteem (technically...), and clean eating is a virtue. Why, a virtue?? Because resisting junk food is a feat!!!
Going off soda is a good example.. even when your stomach cannot stand it! The tongue just demands it of us!!

There are many reasons we have to go off junk, key issues being managing a life long diseases like diabetes and hypertension, and when struggling with weight loss. It seems impossible at first, but it can be done.

When we eat, the part of the brain that responds to rewards is activated, and we feel "rewarded". When the food is exceptionally tasty and rare, we feel more "rewarded". This is why food treats are very powerful tools when training animals...including lions and whales!!!
Since a good meal often comes with enjoyable company and a good activity at the time, we associate good food to good feelings. This leads to a system where resisting tasty food is somehow difficult, especially when we feel bad about something.. thus COMFORT FOOD syndrome.

It is common for people who are upset to binge on sweet foods, especially ice creams, chocolates etc.

Healthy foods, well... are known to be bland and tasteless. It is well known that fruit smoothies and salads are an acquired taste (just like good whiskey.. ). To acquire this taste, you may have to force it down your throat for at least a week, twice a day!! Once you "acquire" the taste, you may become a health food junkie (again, just like good whiskey). Processed foods have a way of being sweet or savoury to the extent that we "reward" ourselves when we hit our targets (I often feel ENTITLED to an ice cream after working non-stop for a day!!), its that serious. Then you throw in the possible phenomenon of being addicted to sugar...

As usual, I will back up science with my own weird ways of getting things done. It is possible to wean off junk like French fries. One way is to use the acquired taste theory, ie replace the fries with something else you eat at that time. By the end of the week, the fries stop being so sweet.. (that's a lie, but it worked for me). The other method was to make the fries difficult to access. I convinced myself that the reason my tummy had issues was because the fries I bought were not well prepared.. never mind that I never had a stomach infection (what you put in your mind really does shape your path).

So I decided to be making my own fries. A single plate would take not less that 45 minutes to prepare and cook, plus a mountain of dishes to be cleaned afterwards. By the time I sat to eat, I was too bored to eat the entire plate!!! So fries eventually became a once-a-long-time event, that is when about four or five of us desired fries, and at least one of us was philanthropic enough to prepare the fries!! And that is how I stopped eating fries daily, to eating them once a month!! Similar "lazy-girl" attitudes I have used to overcome the other junk cravings that I experienced daily.

Granted, there are days we cannot help but have a cake or ice cream (the menstrual cycle, pregnancy or even medication can cause strong cravings), it is possible to go off junk food and maintain a clean diet. It however takes time and discipline. Discipline, as we all know is purely a MENTAL thing. It is the will of the mind over the body. When you achieve discipline in just one area of your life, you are better able to adapt to other disciplined lifestyles.

So it is possible to wean off addictive junk food. It all starts in the mind, then you can trick your body into submission. After that, it becomes a lifestyle. Just like a bottle of fine matured whiskey!!!

This is Serenity!!

++ What fat burners are all about ++
++ Take care of your greatest asset, your mind!! ++
++self appreciation: the journey towards self reconstruction ++
++Love yourself well: The art of self promotion++

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