Getting on CRAutopilot/binging/temptation

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Date: Fri, 19 Dec 2003 11:21:59 -0800

From: " Warren " <warren.taylor@...>

Subject: Getting on CR Autopilot

We are all the same. We make goofups about eating.

Sometimes we just make sad choices, go out of control,

and eat too much of the wrong things (bingeing).

---------------------------

There were several posts on binging/poor food choices.

A few things have helped me:

1. What Francesca pointed out, that very often our body is not

needing food, it is needing water----drink water, and wait a while,

and the craving may be gone

2. Be prepared by having the food you want available when and where

you want it. We had a big Holiday Party with the people at work last

night: tempting unhealthy dishes were everywhere---literally dozens

of them.

I may have yielded to the temptations had I not eaten a mixture of

brown rice, sweet potatoes, and soybeans just before I went to the

party. Then at the party, I ate the only healthy food there: raw

broccoli, raw celery, raw tomatoes.

3. Probably the biggest thing that has helped me avoid temptation is

getting on a regular schedule. This way my body knows when it is

going to get food, how much food it is going to get, and at about

what time to expect it.

I eat lunch at roughly the same time each day, and it is always a

gigantic raw vegetable mixture, with rommaine lettuce, broccoli,

cabbages, tomato, spinach, other lettuces, sprouts, etc. The exact

vegetables change from day to day, but the general meal, the

approximate quantity (lots) and timing are the same.

Later in the afternoon, I blend flavonoid rich berries with an entire

lemon and sucralose.

Dinner is about at the same time each night after exercising at the

gym, and although it varies somewhat each day, the content and timing

are highly consistent.

Perhaps at one time this required some discipline, but once my body

learned the routine, it has pretty much been on auto-pilot, with very

little to no " will-power " required.

Also the gigantic raw veg. lunch doesn't take any will power, because

I do not limit the quantities of raw vegetables allowed----if I'm

still hungry, I'll eat an entire head of rommaine lettuce if I feel

hungry to do so. Pure tomato paste makes raw vegetables taste

great. I find rommaine lettuce with tomato paste to be absolutely

delicious. Another way to make raw vegetables taste delicious is to

take various vinegars, mix them 50:50 with good water, add sucralose

to taste, put that in a jar with things like raw sliced beets, red

onions, ginger, red/green peppers---let it sit a few days, and pour

some of that over the raw vegetables.

4. You can train your taste buds and your mind psychologically that

raw vegetables are the healthiest, most nutrient dense foods, and be

determined to eat them regardless of current appeal/taste. This may

take a little while. At one point, I did not like raw broccoli,

cauliflower or many other raw vegetables. Then a turning point came

where, without even noticing it, I really enjoyed eating these foods.

The big advantage here is that these foods hardly have any calories,

but have a lot of nutrition and phytochemicals. Since you can eat as

much of these foods as you like (it is very hard to eat too many

calories of raw salad type green vegetables), once you start to enjoy

them, temptation diminishes greatly.

rjb112@...