Cravings and bingeing

[RacingSnake108]

I started my MWL journey only very recently on 24 January. Previously I was a processed food vegan.

It was all smooth sailing until today, my 11th day, and suddenly I'm hit with massive cravings for sugar, oil, salt, flour. I ate far too much for lunch to alleviate it (all compliant foods) but of course that didn't help with the cravings.

I need some encouragement! Does it get better? Before today I enjoyed the food but right now it all tastes awful to me

[Mark Cooper]

The cravings will, eventually, start to fade away; it can sometimes take longer than we might think and it is usually a wise strategy not to succumb to those cravings, lest we reinforce and strengthen them. Definitely err on the side of not letting yourself become overly hungry. Another strategy that has seemed to help many people is finding some non-food related activity to do when the cravings set in - go for a walk, do laundry, make a phone call, do some stretching or yoga, run some errands, &c. Basically, find something to get your mind focused on something else for 20 minutes (or more). Try to remember, if you aren't hungry and are still craving foods that don't fit within the MWL guidelines, it is almost certainly either the grumbling of the "pleasure trap" or perhaps you are feeling in need of some other form of reward or support for which "treats" are a stand-in? You also did have a pretty significant amount of weight loss last week, so be sure you are consuming plenty of starch each meal to ensure lasting satiety.

[RacingSnake108]

The cravings will, eventually, start to fade away; it can sometimes take longer than we might think and it is usually a wise strategy not to succumb to those cravings, lest we reinforce and strengthen them.

Try to remember, if you aren't hungry and are still craving foods that don't fit within the MWL guidelines, it is almost certainly either the grumbling of the "pleasure trap" or perhaps you are feeling in need of some other form of reward or support for which "treats" are a stand-in?

Thank you for reminding me of the pleasure trap. Knowing that I'm actually functioning as nature intended in a messed up world makes it a lot easier, than when I beat myself up for being weak willed and somehow "broken"

I will keep forming new neutral pathways! And with that, I'm now going to the sauna with my best friend for a bit.

Mark, you are amazing, just saying. What a support you are, thank you

[wildgoose]

@RacingSnake108, I don’t know if this will be true for you, but for me it was a good month before food started tasting good again without salt or sodium-laden processed add-ins. (Note that it is not a requirement for MWL to go salt-free or very low sodium — I chose to, because I was overeating on heavily salted food and it was affecting my blood pressure.)

Cravings for higher fat foods take longer to dissipate — sometimes as long as 3-4 months. For me, it was about 3 months.

BUT the cravings are not always intense. You can go along just fine for days, and then one hits you, out of the blue. The important thing is not to feed that craving. Sooner or later, that un-fed craving will extinguish itself. If you feed it, you just make it worse. I found that the more strictly I adhered to my plan, the easier it was to kill those pesky cravings.

That won’t work for everybody, but for me, the best way out of the Pleasure Trap was to grit my teeth and get through it. It gets better. Even when it’s bad, it doesn’t stay bad for long.

Mark had some great ideas for alternatives, things you can do to distract yourself or suggestions to come up with non-food rewards. Most important for me was to keep a clean nest. If there’s no junk in the house, it’s a lot harder to give in to a craving on the spur of the moment. Yes, people drive to the convenience store at 3AM for a junk food hit, but it’s way more dangerous if all you have to do is open the cupboard or the freezer door.

I also had to change some habits. I started driving a different route home, to avoid the row of takeout places that I was in the habit of stopping at on the way. If I even drove by them, it triggered a craving. So I didn’t drive by them. 3 minutes longer to get home was a good trade for fewer cravings.

You are not broken. You are a normal animal, functioning just as you were designed to. The problem is the over-abundance of food-like substances that are being dangled in front of all of us at every opportunity, by chemists and advertisers taking advantage of every natural instinct that we have.

I listened to a whole lot of Doug Lisle lectures those first couple of months. That was a big help, too.

Good luck, and enjoy your sauna!

Goose

[Tian-De]

Thanks for sharing everyone,

I'm really grateful that this space is here to talk things out.

I have been going through the same sort of things lately too. I'm only about a week into the MWL plan, but no matter how much I eat (erring on more starches than veggies, like 60-40 or 70-30) the cravings for fatty, sugary, processed things in entirely too intense.

I'm eating till I'm full all the time, but just can't shake the hangry, depressed feelings.

Yesterday, I made a glass of chocolate almond milk when I caught myself. I took a sip, then quickly reminded myself that I committed to break this addiction, and poured the rest of my chocolate almond milk down the sink. It's really hard to describe how sad and hurt I felt. I cried briefly at the sink as I watched it go down.

Essentially, the feeling is like I'm not actually hungry but I feel extremely sad and have this irrational drive that if only I could gourge on vegan junk food it would go away.

Oh! Writing this, it reminds me of what it felt like to quit smoking! This irrational, irritated, quick-to-anger, feeling.

I appreciate the suggestion to do something that isn't food related though. That's good advice, I feel like the more I focus on the issue, the bigger it becomes.

[wildgoose]

Thanks for sharing everyone,

I'm really grateful that this space is here to talk things out.

I have been going through the same sort of things lately too. I'm only about a week into the MWL plan, but no matter how much I eat (erring on more starches than veggies, like 60-40 or 70-30) the cravings for fatty, sugary, processed things in entirely too intense.

I'm eating till I'm full all the time, but just can't shake the hangry, depressed feelings.

Yesterday, I made a glass of chocolate almond milk when I caught myself. I took a sip, then quickly reminded myself that I committed to break this addiction, and poured the rest of my chocolate almond milk down the sink. It's really hard to describe how sad and hurt I felt. I cried briefly at the sink as I watched it go down.

Essentially, the feeling is like I'm not actually hungry but I feel extremely sad and have this irrational drive that if only I could gourge on vegan junk food it would go away.

Oh! Writing this, it reminds me of what it felt like to quit smoking! This irrational, irritated, quick-to-anger, feeling.

I appreciate the suggestion to do something that isn't food related though. That's good advice, I feel like the more I focus on the issue, the bigger it becomes.

Tian-De, as a former smoker, I understand your comparing the feelings from cravings to the feelings from quitting smoking. Fortunately, you know that you can get through them, because you’ve done it before, albeit in a different context.

The bad thing about the feelings is that they can seem overwhelming (especially these days, when so much else is seeming overwhelming). The good news is, the feelings are temporary. They don’t last. Surf through them, distract your way around them, get past them till the next one surfaces, repeat. They will diminish, in both frequency and intensity, as long as you don’t feed them.

Don’t feel bad about crying over spilt chocolate almond milk. I once cried over a Subway sandwich. About a month after I started MWL, the Gander brought home a foot-long veggie sub. He asked me to slice it in half and re-wrap it for him. Simple — I’d done that dozens of times before. But when the smell of that bread hit me, I wanted that sandwich so badly that I cried — both from the craving and the sadness that I couldn’t have that sandwich ever again. I don’t think that would happen now, but at the time it was pretty depressing.

Stay the course! We're all here with you.

Goose

[Tian-De]

Tian-De, as a former smoker, I understand your comparing the feelings from cravings to the feelings from quitting smoking. Fortunately, you know that you can get through them, because you’ve done it before, albeit in a different context.

Thanks, this is helpful to hear. Before going through this, I never realized that I was actually addicted to food. I quit smoking shortly after I started practicing Falun Dafa meditation. Though I had tried quitting a dozen times before, it was the first time I was able to follow through. I believed in my heart that I couldn't reach enlightenment if I had strong addictions and was filling my body with toxic junk. I need to be able to treat junk food like an addiction to be abandoned. Like you said, it's been done before!

The bad thing about the feelings is that they can seem overwhelming (especially these days, when so much else is seeming overwhelming). The good news is, the feelings are temporary. They don’t last. Surf through them, distract your way around them, get past them till the next one surfaces, repeat. They will diminish, in both frequency and intensity, as long as you don’t feed them.

Yup, yup. I went through some intense periods of severe depression when I was much younger, and it totally feels like a complete relapse into that state. But, what's funny about it is that when I look in the mirror, I don't see a sad person at all, but rather a happy, healthy person. It's like that addiction is a spirit that's dying, and it is trying to put its feelings off onto me so that I will sustain it again. Internally it's quite intense, but there really isn't a problem

Don’t feel bad about crying over spilt chocolate almond milk. I once cried over a Subway sandwich. About a month after I started MWL, the Gander brought home a foot-long veggie sub. He asked me to slice it in half and re-wrap it for him. Simple — I’d done that dozens of times before. But when the smell of that bread hit me, I wanted that sandwich so badly that I cried — both from the craving and the sadness that I couldn’t have that sandwich ever again. I don’t think that would happen now, but at the time it was pretty depressing.

I know exactly what you mean. It's like it isn't real hunger, but rather the thought or feeling of it. I can totally relate.

Question, did you have any good whole starch foods that really pulled you through the hard times? Something you could eat everyday and make you feel whole.

Stay the course! We're all here with you.

Goose

Thank. It makes a big different. I've been looking into this for two years now, but after finding this community I this is the first time I've felt like it was doable.

[wildgoose]

Question, did you have any good whole starch foods that really pulled you through the hard times? Something you could eat everyday and make you feel whole.

For me, especially at the beginning, what worked the best was to keep my food very simple and limited to just a few foods. I literally ate almost the same thing every day for a couple of months. Broccoli and brown rice. Oatmeal, bananas and blueberries. The simplicity really kept me grounded. (This worked for me, but I know it would drive some people crazy!)

When I started adding more starches, the first things I added were Yukon Gold potatoes, and two varieties of sweet potatoes (Japanese sweet potatoes and Hannah yams). Those were what I thought of when I read your question.

You need to ask yourself that question, though, and see what resonates with you. Everyone is different in terms of which foods make them feel whole. I’d be interested to hear what you come up with.

Goose

[Tian-De]

The two things I feel like I could eat everyday are oven fries and taco filling.

The fries are a recipe from HighCarbHannah. I take Yukon golds, steam them for 13 minutes, cover them in garlic powder and other spices, then air fry or broil them until brown.

For the taco filling, I water sauté onions and garlic in a big wok with lots of spices, then add lots of random veggies, and finally add corn and beans. When I went vegetarian a few years back, this was a major staple. I find it's still quite good even without crispy tortillas, oil, cheese, and sour cream.

Right now, I think I need to focus more on following the 10 guidelines are much as possible, and not think weight loss. I am actually a fairly healthy weight now (high end of normal BMI). When I think about loosing weight, I feel that I make be making myself eat less quantity than I really want to eat (even though it looks like a lot to others).

A thought came to me in meditation that a lot of these intense feelings may be from sugar withdrawal as well. It feels so much like getting off drugs. I can't describe how much this is like getting off drugs.

[wildgoose]

The two things I feel like I could eat everyday are oven fries and taco filling.

The fries are a recipe from HighCarbHannah. I take Yukon golds, steam them for 13 minutes, cover them in garlic powder and other spices, then air fry or broil them until brown.

For the taco filling, I water sauté onions and garlic in a big wok with lots of spices, then add lots of random veggies, and finally add corn and beans. When I went vegetarian a few years back, this was a major staple. I find it's still quite good even without crispy tortillas, oil, cheese, and sour cream.

Right now, I think I need to focus more on following the 10 guidelines are much as possible, and not think weight loss. I am actually a fairly healthy weight now (high end of normal BMI). When I think about loosing weight, I feel that I make be making myself eat less quantity than I really want to eat (even though it looks like a lot to others).

A thought came to me in meditation that a lot of these intense feelings may be from sugar withdrawal as well. It feels so much like getting off drugs. I can't describe how much this is like getting off drugs.

I think you’re developing a plan here. Your oven fries and taco filling sound great — I may try that!

Excellent strategy to focus on the 10 guidelines. The weight loss will come. And do not restrict quantities. Eat until comfortably full, stop, wait until hungry again, repeat. When you eat according to MWL/calorie density principles, you generally eat more in volume. People can’t believe how much food I eat, especially since I am now so thin. I literally eat out of a mixing bowl or a 2 quart serving bowl!

Getting off sugar can indeed be likened to a milder form of getting off drugs, especially if you were accustomed to eating a lot of it. The good news is, it’s easier than getting off drugs and takes less time. For me, the intense sugar cravings went away in about 10 days. My taste buds reset for no added salt/very low sodium (not necessarily required for MWL, but I had high blood pressure so I chose to do this) in about 30 days. Getting completely used to the lower fat content of MWL took about 3 months.

Having a good meditation practice will help you as well.

Goose

[Tian-De]

Thanks!