Wednesday, April 12, 2023

Eating intuitively might not be possible if you haven't cleaned up your diet.

 Sugar and starch are addictive.  Processed food is also engineered to be addictive.

An example I heard recently (in this film) was to consider something like a bowl of raw, unsalted almonds.  That's pretty enticing, but I think you would quickly reach a point of satiety eating them, probably before the bowl ran out.  Now replace those raw almonds with honey roasted and salted almonds, i.e. almonds covered in sugar and salt.  There is literally no end to the appetite for that.  If it were me, I would only stop eating when I ran out. If I didn't, and had them in a cabinet, I would suffer intrusive thoughts of eating them, even when I was full.

I like the idea of intuitive eating, and do it naturally these days.  However, dinner was a piece of beef that I cooked myself, and cauliflower, both cooked in butter.  That's a very filling meal, even at a relatively small portion size.  It's also satiating in the sense that one stays full for hours afterwards.  I'm fairly confident that even if I cooked up a platter of it, I would reach a reasonable point where I just didn't want any more, and that that point would be similar to the amount I cooked for myself as one serving.