fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2541 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2541 ⌋

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Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Except... this isn't actually how it works. Your body doesn't actually tell you what it "wants". There aren't different hunger cues for fats or sugars or vitamin deficiencies. If there were, there wouldn't be so many nutrition guides and we wouldn't be able to advertise so much food with emotional imagery.

How a person eats is a combination of what they've been taught and what they've become accustomed to eating. Most people have a very limited diet and they stick to a dozen different key combinations of food for everyday nutrition needs. What's more, we get reinforced in a multitude of different ways- from the contents of the food itself (ex. foods containing refined sugar will stimulate more reward mechanisms in the brain than food that doesn't) to the social and emotional rewards we associate with eating certain foods.

So yes, despite the fact that we're all individuals and all have somewhat different requirements in terms of our calorie intakes our bodies are actually terrible at telling us what we "need". They are in fact very good at telling us what we want, despite the fact that what we want tends to be pretty bad for us if we consume too much of it.

mte

Maybe my use of the phrase "what your body wants" was misleading-- it's kind of new-agey and indistinct. What I really meant, as I said above, is learning the ability to react appropriately to stimulus without needing to rely on arbitrary rules. For instance, like everybody else, all I ever want to do when I get home from a long day is eat a giant bag of chips and vegetate on the couch. However, past experience has taught me that if I do that! I'll feel shitty, and I probably only want to do that because I haven't eaten anything that my body can use in a while. If I eat some real food, all of a sudden the urge to do that disappears. Sure, chips still taste good, but that not longer has to be the only driving force behind what I choose to eat. So, taking into account how certain foods make you feel when you're choosing what to eat is a really important skill.

And there aren't different hunger cues for different foods or anything, but there don't need to be. You don't need a special vegetable cue to tell you vegetables are good food, you already know that. And getting to a place where you're able to see good food as it's own reward, instead of "if I eat enough vegetable units I'll be allowed to have a dessert unit!" is what's actually going to make you happy with your eating habits in the long term.

In my experience the level of "want" associated with garbage food is a very superficial desire, and it's possible to get past it and begin associating good food with good feelings.

Then again, as I said, not a doctor, that's just what works best for me.

Yeah, but you're talking here, apparently, as someone who has the health privilege of being able to try and fail however many times it takes to get to that mental state.

As I said in the main post, I'm not diabetic, but I'm not far from it either. I don't have the luxury of working through hippy dippy food psychology. I need to be doing things now that make a quantifiable difference so that I can have a later that isn't seeped in illness.

So I'm glad this works for you, but I've got to say, the more I think about it, the more I really resent your original comment and the implication that people who want some structure in their food choices are just sheep-ish slaves to the diet industry who just need to learn how their body works.

I'm sorry that what I said wasn't helpful for you, and I hope things work out in a way you're happy with.

Haven't there been studies or something that essentially say a lot of cravings can (but don't always) tie back to something we're lacking? This Huffington Post article (http://www.naturalblaze.com/2013/08/all-foods-that-you-crave-are-driven-by.html) has a graphic of cravings, what they might mean you need, and alternative foods to get that. Like, if you're craving chocolate, you could be short on magnesium, which you could get from nuts, legumes and fresh fruits.

[ SECRET POST #2541 ]

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