The smells of old food that I use to enjoy

(cheryl) #1

My husband makes these awesome yummy home fries… and lately, he’s been making them a LOT – I resist them… but It’s been hard the past year…

Ideas on how you avoid things your family makes that you use to love - How do you avoid the temptation?

:frowning:

(Ethan) #2

You need to instead love new things more. Enjoy the new thing.

(cheryl) #3

lol I love new things… all things keto… but once in awhile … old things haunt me! :wink:

(Tracy) #4

I avoid it by operating on the assumption that you can’t occasionally mix high carbs with high fat. It took a while to get the cravings out of my mind but they do go away and I can watch people eat cake without a problem.

#5

This is a darn good insight.

yea you eat higher fat and big protein and extreme low carb…when you eat that other junk, you are right back to SAD and heart attack city in my mind. And I get this thought in that if you partake you went ‘straight back to the worse of the worse menu’ you can eat.

I helped me avoid also. Carbs are poison. Once accepted we can help ourselves thru alot but TIME ON YOUR eating plan is key.

To Cheryl…OMG the smells, sights, tv commercials, the ‘life is unfair’ cause they eat crap and I ‘can’t’ but wanna was so tough but in the bitter end of it all…what did I want and desire? I went all in with I want XYZ and I made it happen with eating tons and tons of ON plan food at all times. If I craved or got irked about anything or any food around me I ate the best of the best on the plan I chosen to take me to health, and oh yea I ate ALOT :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

It is hard. It will take time to ‘forget it all’ and change the mindset but in the end of it all, you want it, you make it happen for you at all turns thru big eating changes!

You are ok. If you stay on plan and eat well the food you like you will always get thru smell, sight, social events and more. HOLD strong!!

(You've tried everything else; why not try bacon?) #6

I asked the same question, when I was new, and the most useful answer was to look at the item and think, “death food.” It usually works, though not always, I have to admit. Interestingly, what gets to me most these days is not the sweet stuff, but the yeast breads, croissants, and other items of that type. I can usually get away with one French fry, but those little loaves that the pizza parlour includes with your order—get thee behind me, Satan!

(cheryl) #7

yup. I hear you… I’ve been keto for almost 3 years now. Just saying the struggle happens even for us longer Keto-ers…

Covid has brought back old demons that I’m fighting.

#8

Remember… ‘nothing tastes as good as skinny feels’.

#9

Yup yup I get this…you wanna use Covid as your excuse and I so did also :wink:…and this is where what others want and use as their coping stuff has to be not us :wink:

Other eaters, ‘they want it and do it to cope’ but we have to draw that darn line in that want do we truly want longer term and what health priority we put on us for that results…good health?

heck my hubby was like 25 lbs overweight and now he is like 35 ALL THRU boredom eating and ‘wanna feel good eating’ and heck yea I see it, know it and gosh darn I want it point blank :skull: but in the end of it all, when this all changes, and it will, where will you be? Holding onto your health and beliefs in how your food heals and how long of a time you did this work and gain knowledge, or are ya gonna be that post…I gave it up thru stress times and caved? Hey it goes down each way for all of us and I get it, you hold strong Cheryl to what you want and not default into the wrong way cause it IS truly easier and an excuse.

You got eat the best darn keto stuff ya love and eat a ton of it and fill up that belly and then alot of this junk seems so much easier as we think about it all!

#10

My SO made scalloped potatoes with smoked cheese and sausages today, they smelled good! :smiley: Not enough to accidentally feel it but I smelled it from close :slight_smile: I like smelling food, cooking food, it’s almost as joyous as eating it if I am in the right state physically and mentally or just it’s already that part of my journey…

So there is this. Then… I have a very strong influence on what my SO makes, I simply ask him not making tempting food (tempting for me) when I want to stay on track but I am not good enough by myself and he doesn’t mind. His normal food isn’t tempting anymore, he does them (or I do) all the time, I got unsensitized, bored, have my superior version…etc.

And I have my own great food. I can just eat my fill using that. If I know some danger is coming, I can do something more special than usual. It helps it they are similar. A tempting soup? (I love soups.) I make my nice broth. Some main dish like the potatoes now (they don’t tempt me but I always eat from it as it’s very good. I plan that now, to a tiny extent. Or if I still want it later. Not today.)…? Good luck to beat meat and eggs… :wink: I need to enjoy my food all the time, have enough variety, have my fill, it’s harder to get tempted this way.

But I probably shouldn’t talk about these as my main solution is never resisting temptation, just training myself and using my health-conscious hedonism. I don’t use much self control, I slowly change. But sometimes it’s rapid, I suddenly went low-carb without any problems (suddenly stopped eating sugar, wheat, almost all other grains, potatoes, dry legumes and most processed food. I mean I eat cheese and similar things but not stuff with multiple ingredients except spice mixes and a few condiments). The most carby items (with a few exceptions) became not food (for a few years but I had good habits and a bit changed taste at that point). But it just happened, I have no advice about it, I managed to turn some switch in my brain, my health-consciousness helped most (and the fact that I felt WAY better on low-carb. I can enjoy myself there too, it doesn’t worth to give up this better feeling!).

Sometimes I can persuade myself because it’s clear what I should and shouldn’t do. I have my desires and compulsions, some are hopelessly strong but usually I can stop and think it over. It’s easiest with processed stuff. I just read the label and it turns me off, usually.

I don’t know what is tempting for you regarding fries. Crunch? Make or buy some keto crunchy stuff. If it’s the taste, well, that’s a bigger problem as nothing else has that taste. But it’s fine not eating everything as long as you can eat something else that is similarly tasty - even if totally different. It doesn’t work all the time, I know that very well but sometimes it does.

Very low-carb is the simplest and most general solution to me. It turns off almost all temptation. Even when I am hungry. The previous things were about my past when I ate more carbs, even on keto. They messed with me. I guess the limit is personal, some people have problematic items… I mean keto food that keeps them vulnerable. I eat enough fatty protein without carbs like vegetables and nothing can tempt me for a while. I didn’t test it long term yet but the changes are amazing short term, they did great things to my “control”. I don’t feel control, I still eat whatever I want. I just want my normal food (and maybe a little more but it’s still very much keto). There are worse time, probably for everyone, we aren’t robots, our days are different. But finding the right woe that shield us from most temptations is still amazing! I had to wait for years until I could go really low though… But now? I explicitly “allow” myself to eat anything I want (though I do something like this anyway but I still try to behave if I can)… And I want meat and eggs and not even my old favs. I suddenly don’t even recognize myself.

It’s surely very individual but there is some hope for undisciplined hedonistic folks like me too. It’s easier if carbs cause problems as you don’t want something bad, I guess. That’s not hedonistic at all. As soon as I notice I get a nice reward, I drastically change and temptations rapidly lose their power.

(UsedToBeT2D) #11

I still enjoy the smell of fresh baked bread, french fries, pizza, bbq, bagels, Cinnabon, when I go to the food court in the mall…I liken it it to the perfume of my favorite flowers…I can enjoy the fragrance, but I don’t eat the flowers either.

#12

Well said! There is quince season in my garden, the fruits are so nice smelling :slight_smile: It doesn’t actually make me wanting to eat them but I am glad I can enjoy them this way. (I find the taste nice too but my canned fruit consumption - as I do that with most of my fruit especially quince, not like it wouldn’t be edible raw but we don’t often do it - is negligible. I don’t want to eat every tasty thing and I am particularly choosy if it’s about sugary ones.)

#13

That’s weird, It’s pretty rare that I eat white potatoes but do eat sweet potatoes, the last couple weeks I’ve thought about home fries every morning I make breakfast, luckily the amount of work it takes stops me :grinning: For some reason out of all the amazing ones Ive had in many different breakfast joints, the ones that always pop into my head are the Friendly’s ones… Must be childhood damage.

Also, How the hell did I not know about another Boston person on here? My spidey sense must have crapped out. I’m from JP :+1:

#14

Roasted daikon with lard and garlic and sea salt is pretty amazing sub for potatoes. I’ve grown to prefer daikon and cauliflower to potato so thankfully it’s not a temptation anymore.

(Laurie) #15

When I worked as a cook, the stuff I made wasn’t food to me. It was other things: work, money, a creation.

Now I continue to appreciate certain foods in non-food ways: the smell, the appearance … but it stops there.

(Robin) #16

Divorce. Or at least a home-fries-restraining-order. Egads!