For many of us, a diet has come to represent the verb form of the word rather than the noun (dictionary.com):
Noun: The kinds of food that a person, animal, or community habitually eats.
Verb: Restrict oneself to small amounts or special kinds of food in order to lose weight.
The noun form is what we should be doing to live this life of ours and the verb form is the act of doing that. Yesterday, I started what is referred to as eating clean. Eating in this way was not but Tosca Reno who is the author of The Eat-Clean Diet, The Eat-Clean Diet Recharged, The Eat-Clean Diet Stripped, and cookbooks featuring recipes for this lifestyle as well. As she states on her website about the "diet": "Eating Clean is not a fad; it’s a way of life. " So many so-called diets are not lifestyles, but are ways to drop weight which is only a short-term fix.
If you are an emotional eater like me, you may be bound to being a yo-yo dieter who loses and gains the weight without ever dropping off the baggage. That is, until you address the root of the issue. For me, sugar and baked items made with white flour are HUGE triggers for me. They lead me down a path to binge eating and kill my satiety. When I fuel my body properly, I don't desire these types of foods. Once I start to eat it, though, I crave it. As I was reading Made to Crave (CH 17) last night, Lysa TerKeurst was talking about a study that showed that junk food can be addictive. The more you eat of it, the more you want of it--at any cost! I found reference to this study's results as reported through an ABC/GMA article.
A new study by researchers at the Scripps Research Institute in Florida found similar results in rats. Pleasure centers in the brains of those fed high-fat, high-calorie food became less responsive over time -- a signal that the rats were becoming addicted. The rats started to eat more and more. They even went for the junk food when they had to endure an electric shock to get it.
"Your brain reacts almost identically to [that of] a cocaine addict looking at cocaine," said Dr. Louis J. Aronne, a clinical professor at Weill Cornell Medical School and former president of The Obesity Society. "And the interesting thing is that someone who is obese has even more similarity to the cocaine addict. ... In many ways, they can be addicted to junk food."
We have become true junk-food addicts! Addiction has many forms. As a former smoker, I can tell you that quitting was RIDICULOUSLY HARD. And no matter how long you've quit for, you are still susceptible to restart. When I was getting divorced, I started again for a while and would quit and start...it was a terrible cycle for the year I did it. Quitting smoking is often said to be harder than quitting heroin and now junk food like cocaine! Problem is, with alcohol, drugs, cigarettes and the like, you can quit cold turkey or through assistance and never touch the stuff again. Food is something we have to have to sustain ourselves. I can quit junk food, processed food and sugar, though, which is where the problem exists and I can eat "clean". Finally, a way to LIVE-IT instead of diet!
Great job on your weight loss! Found your blog through FB and Fab Fitness! Great post on clean eating! It works that is for sure!!!
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Thanks, Jen! I am loving the Clean Eating way of life!
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