Keto is kinda boring

(John) #21

I was born and raised in the south, and still live here. Food is not love. Food is fuel for your body. If you let food turn into something else, you’ll gain weight, because you are eating for some reason other than a true need for nutrition.

These are the sort of psychological traps we fall into. Food = comfort. Food = family. Food = pleasure. Food = reward. Food = love. Food = entertainment. Food = stress relief.

All of those false equations lodged firmly in your mind will cause you to eat more than you need, or to seek out the hyper-palatable foods, or self-medicate with food.

I spent a fair bit of time analyzing why I was eating, to see if I was actually hungry or eating for some other reason. I found that a couple of my issues are that I am susceptible to “eating for mouth pleasure” and “stress relief nibbling.”

That is not saying you can’t enjoy eating. I really enjoy eating. But I do not eat for the sake of enjoyment. I eat because I am hungry, and when I am hungry, I choose to eat very healthy foods. Which taste FABULOUS because I am actually hungry.

You can certainly make wonderful tasting foods that are healthy. Fresh ingredients, the right spices, recipes, techniques, and time to prepare them, and you can have quite luxurious meals while staying low carb.

Just important not to eat BECAUSE you need love, or pleasure, or comfort. Eat your lovingly prepared, pleasurable, comfortable food BECAUSE you need to eat for nutrition and energy.

#22

I’ve maintained an 80 pound weight loss for 11 years and will continue to do so. None of what you said applies to me but I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

#23

Darn I eat for the sake of enjoyment and I ain’t a foodie type. I relish my plate and lick the darn thing after and smile big while doing it and then happy as a clam in that food I just ate :slight_smile:

there are a few personalities, ways to roll thru it all and make it work.

food goes into fuel mode and that is super cool.

food goes into enjoyment mode and cook for yourself new ways to stay on plan and enjoy the heck out of your meals all the time smiling that this is on plan and you are happy and become the ‘new plan’ foodie to make it work for you and take the bull by the horns and live great in your choices.

not a darn thing wrong with either…but you never can say one way is right and the other wrong for anyone.

it is all about you. Pick a side and have at it cause both are right and both are needed by an individual person to make this lifelong journey work.

the south is not all about food and love and all…the entire planet has this belief :slight_smile: the entire planet also has the ‘food is fuel’ people who don’t require that association.

both are right. choose what works for you and move forward in life and never take away anything from the other that works for them…best we can do when such big changes are needed in personal lives and let it go down as it has to go down for each of us.

So many emotional journeys and we all will never have the same experiences from birth. Our lives can be so radically different in beliefs and medical situations and more. One size won’t fit all here in my opinion.

just thought :slight_smile: not preaching I hope LOL just chatting out as I feel it and enjoying this chat!

(John) #24

That is a wonderful accomplishment!

It was a reply to the general thread, though I did base it on something specific you said. I suppose the issue is when people SUBSTITUTE food for all of those positive things, if they are missing them in their lives or they don’t have another tool to relieve stress or provide comfort.

Some people have positive, healthy approaches to food and nutrition, and others don’t. If you have no weight to lose and no medical conditions to improve, then whatever you are doing now is working fine.

#25

I agree. I used food for all of those things pre-weight loss and it was a long road to change the behavior. Now I use exercise when I’m sad, mad, stressed, etc.

I should have added ‘in my world’ when I wrote ‘food is love’. I just meant I cook for people I love and care about in order to show them I love and care about them (just like my grandmother did) and I don’t know any other way. My boyfriend actually told me the other day that the (keto) food I make for him tastes so much better than what he makes himself because I love him more than he’ll ever love himself. I thought that was one of the nicest things anyone’s ever said to me. That’s how ingrained the ‘food is love’ thing is in me. :grinning:

(Susan) #26

This is soooo true, Randy. I even did it with my kids when they were little – if you eat all your meal, you get desert… grr, I wish I knew about Keto years ago!

(John) #27

When I started all of this, I told myself (using Paul’s logic of indefinitely delayed, but not prohibited, gratification) that when I hit my 63rd birthday, which is a little over a year from now, if I am at or under my goal weight of 180 (about 25 pounds to go for that), I will have some birthday cake and ice cream.

Now, about halfway to that date goal, I have thought about it more, and think instead I would “reward” myself with a nice, 36-hour fast! We’ll see how it plays out. :wink:

(Susan) #28

This is very very true, John -it is just getting everyone to know this. On Keto, we now realize this is true. The way many of us were raised wasn’t to think this way, even though it is the truth.

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #29

Sharing food with the family to show your love and concern goes way back…

It’s just less applicable now than it used to be. Old habits are hard to change.

#30

Not all ‘we’ think like this LOL

(Michael - When reality fails to meet expectations, the problem is not reality.) #31

There are many different reasons people share and/or consume food that are totally unrelated to the single universal reason: it’s fuel. Absolutely essential fuel. During past evolution it made perfectly good sense to share food to ensure our own and our descendants’ survival. Humans are certainly not the only species to have figured this out as my photo above shows. We are the descendants of those who did it the most efficiently. Loving food, eating food to excess when available, sharing food with loved ones, using food as social bonding to the larger group - all make evolutionary sense. During thousands of years of relative scarcity. During relative abundance, however, not so much. We can see the results all around us of ‘relating’ to food not as fuel but as a substitute and/or adjunct to psychological needs. Those misplaced feelings get exacerbated by the prevalence of carb dense foods that only serve to derange our metabolism.

(Liza) #32

Get this cookbook. : Southern Keto. There are recipes in this book that are super easy and tasty. I know cheese biscuits are in there.