What does LOVE mean?


(Paul Melzer) #1

From time to time I think about love, attachment, loss, reminiscences, etc., as they apply to foods I’ve enjoyed in my life before I moved to a ketogenic diet, when I left behind refined carbs that I’d loved—fresh-baked sourdough, ice cream, cookies, juices, pasta, tortilla chips, and on and on and on.

I hear people say “I couldn’t give up bread—I love it too much,” or “Don’t you miss waffles and maple syrup?” I’ve found a way to rethink such apparent losses. Although I no longer eat these things, that doesn’t mean I don’t still love them. When someone says “I love IPAs,” unless they’re downing a pint at the time, they’re loving the memory of it (and to some extent the notion that there will be more of it coming in their future).

Like many attachments, carbs perfectly illustrate a cyclic gravity, with the only escape being short periods of satiety. It’s hard to fully explain to those who’ve not experienced it, the freedom felt from leaving this carb planet’s gravity.

I sometimes tell the curious that I’ve not felt hunger for the past 18 months (when I first became fat-adapted), or describe how my mental focus has been so much better, etc. But this is more about rethinking what love is, and how it need not die in the letting go. I don’t need to consume something to love it, do I? With such great memories of these things, I truly feel I love them still…I just don’t eat them. Does this seem idea strange?

More and more, I gravitate towards [attachments to] things that benefit my health and well-being, things that don’t sink their claws of addiction into me. What remains when the attachment and addictions are gone are the memories.

Random thoughts.


Ketogenic Food Substitutes - Why do we have them?
(Scott) #2

Keto strikes again!


#3

It’s not strange at all. Well maybe it is, but then I would be strange as well (which is not off). Anyway, I’ve been off of wheat and most grains for a few years. People tell me they love bread and couldn’t do that. I’d tell them that I love bread too, especially with butter, or French bread with seasoned olive oil. But then I also say that my reasons for not eating it outweigh my love for it (it makes me sick).

I also had a lifelong passion for horses. I grew up riding and competing. As an adult, still rode, taught some, worked as a groom, had my own horse-related business for several years. Now I don’t ride at all, or do much with horses except paying my retired horse’s board and having a few statues around the house. I still love horses, but I have no drive or need for any involvement with them anymore. I suppose my love in this instance is a memory and an appreciation.


(squirrel-kissing paper tamer) #4

I like it. Interesting thoughts.


(Janelle) #5

I get it. I still have a very strong affinity for a seedy, nutty homebaked whole grain bread but I think I love my health more.


(Katie the Quiche Scoffing Stick Ninja ) #6

I do enjoy saying “I’ve not felt hungry since April 2018”, ha!


#7

You say ‘love’, I say ‘Stockholm Syndrome’. :wink:

Carbs and sugar for me now is the ex-roommate who you don’t mind dropping in occasionally for a quick visit but no way in hell are they moving back in.


(The amazing autoimmune 🦄) #8

I am not sure if it was Borges who said that the only memory that is a true memory is when you first remember it. After that first memory you are remembering the remembrance, in other words each time you are remembering you are another step removed from the true memory.

I find that this has been true for food. It doesn’t taste the way I remember it tasting, but I wonder if it isn’t because I have remembered my favorite foods so many times in those first couple of weeks that I have taken a lot of steps away from the true memory.

I am sure my taste buds have changed, but I was so looking forward to a banana on Christmas but was disappointed by the taste.


(Lazy, Dirty Keto 😝) #9

This! I think my Keto journey has taught me that as much as I enjoyed the taste of those foods, what I truly love is how I feel without them.


(Carl Keller) #10

It’s not strange but I feel like I can substitute the word “addiction” for “love”. Much in the same way that a recovered alcoholic is still addicted to the memory or idea of having another drink, I feel the same way about processed sugars. While we can learn to control our hormones and the present, we can never change our memories and how we felt in those moments…


(Omar) #11

I think we tend to love food we eat in our childhood and teens age. We create memory for such food in our brain.


(Doug) #12

Love is shared concerns and caring, affection amidst the first cold raindrops on a hot day, death’s recompense in memories, the affirmation of life.

A white sheet of paper on a blue table, the moon rising over mountains, a flock of silver-winged birds flying high into the morning air, meeting the sun.

Love is when she looks at me out of the corner of her eye, a field of flowers beside the ocean, the lost child returned home.


(Alex ) #13

I like to think of love as a sort of indigestion, but more expensive and with more arguments


#14

Doug, I’m gonna have pleasant dreams, tonight. :slight_smile:


(Bacon is a many-splendoured thing) #15

Amen, brother!

I can still remember the taste of Johnny Walker Red after all these years, so I expect I’ll still remember that Krispy Kreme I ate fifteen years ago for another decade, at least.


#16

I think of it as an ex-boyfriend…there was love there once, then there was heartbreak, sadness, you miss the time you had and then you move on, the memories no longer hurt and you love someone new. Love just morphs

I loved pasta, then I missed it, now I remember it as a lovely food, we had come good times, that just wasnt right for me and my new love is steak+eggs+butter… You still love it, you just don’t want it, because you know better… Maybe old love isn’t recycled, maybe it morphs into wisdom? :thinking:


#17

Until you both get drunk one night & …never mind…


#18

:joy::joy: true :joy:

The next morning’s moral hangover is “keep calm and keto on” mantra :joy: it’s all good, pretend like nothing happened, just a slip…


#19

Closure :sweat_smile:


(Running from stupidity) #20

Just get back on the horse

#ohwait