f1jim wrote:Everyone has excellent points. There is truth in all viewpoints. We must look at these issues from a daily survival standpoint and ask some basic questions.
Is someone fighting these "addictions" hopelessly stuck in lifetime battle never getting a grip on them and overcoming the hold these objects have on us? Must we forever be relegated to a slave/master relationship with these foods and never truly be free from them?
Clearly many have broken this bond of entrapment and managed to change the nature of the relationship to these foods. Some have not. What that means can be very complicated and upsetting to those still feeling rather powerless against these urges/cravings. It seems there are ways out of this "addictive" relationship with foods and there are clearly different, successful methods of achieving ones dietary and health goals.
For some it's a lifetime of portion control of their standard western diet, never able to stray from the scale and the portion sizes. Others have used methods such as calorie density to solve the riddle of how to save themselves. Dr. McDougall notes that obesity is something rare in nature and our species is the only one that deals with it unless mankind visits it on another species. He says that eating our natural diet spares us from these conditions as well as the wide range of chronic disease plaguing most of us. So if we follow our natural diet we avoid these issues and if we suffer from these conditions we can usually reverse their course by reverting to our natural diet.
So all that brings us back full circle to addressing these issues of "addiction/craving" and how do we escape this vicious circle they place us in. The answer is to return to that natural diet and let the diet take care of the health/weight problem for us. We have to be on that diet and avoid the western diet long enough to effect the change we are looking for. Easier said than done! Everyone could do it locked in a cell and fed only the natural diet and not exposed to anything else. Our bodies would have no choice. But we are not locked in a cell and the offending food is everywhere.
Ultimately, the closer we get to that controlled, locked up environment with our food choices limited to only healthy, life promoting choices the better we will do and the faster those cravings/addictions will become a thing of the past. In our lives it seems our mission is to put ourselves in the best possible situation for having such drastic control over our diet. Some will have to be more drastic than others but the same rules will apply to everyone.
Get control over these addictive, destructive, creations of modern man and we will have all we could want out of our bodies and our health. We all must come to the realization of what that means for us as individuals and then follow through to see that happens. THAT is our responsibility. Everyone can do it. No one is hopeless. The power to effect change is within us all. Some will make these changes and see their life change dramatically. Others will die fighting the struggle their entire life. It is a choice we all have. No one must die thinking they are powerless. Everyone here has been given this message and there will be many different choices we will see played out. Everyday those choices are visited on us and we choose a path. The choices many times are not the ones regarding what to eat but the plans we lay down long before that choice reaches us. Many of us have to plan long before mealtime, long before the trip to the supermarket, long before the trip to the restaurant. It's a decision about what they want from life and what it will take to get there. The path of the natural diet or another way.
It's not easy but it is simple.
f1jim
This is such a great summary of addiction, our role, and our hope in it all...I just wanted to have it here to reference. It's from a thread in the lounge if anyone is interested in the context. Thanks, Jim, you state this with such honesty and clarity...not easy, but simple. And no need to ever feel powerless!