I CAN'T STOP EATING JUNK!

Healthy Stealthy ; wrote:
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

My downfall used to be nacho cheese Slim Jims and chip 'n dip. One day,
doing the shopping, I just didn't buy any..... Since then, I develop
jones' for new "junk food." My biggie is celery (or any raw veggie) or
whole wheat hard breadsticks and Hidden Valley Fat-free Bacon Ranch
dressing for a dip. I'm nuts for popcorn, the "lite" kind. And hard
candies! You can much a lot of hard candies before you get into any
dangerous calorie range. Oh, and sesame melba snacks (Olde English
is my fave) with fat-free cream cheese. Plus lots of fresh fruit; it
takes up space & makes you feel full, so you don't overdo. It's all
about satisfying a need for something with flavor that crunches, for me.

Hope this helps!

BTW, I'm new here. Name's Annie, and I'm in Albuquerque. I'm on the
national liver transplant list, and have been told by my dr. that if I
lose pounds he'll do live donor transplant surgery. I've lost from 214
in October of last year to 172 as of yesterday a.m. The first 35 from
surgical anesthesia that made everything taste like quinine, the rest
from watching calories, fats, sodium, and doing a lot of walking.
Glad to meetcha!

Annie
--
"Some mornings, it's just not worth chewing through the leather straps."
Emo Philips

(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message . com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

I think the rage for junk foods is actually rage for either salt
-cheetos, chips, bretzles, etc.- or sugar -cookies, carbonate water
like Pepsi, candies. Am I right? The best way of not eating junk food
is still not to buy it! Could it be simplier than that???

Talk to a psychologist who understands addictions.

Lazy

On 8/22/04 9:37 AM, "Denis Morissette" wrote:

(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message
. com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

I think the rage for junk foods is actually rage for either salt
-cheetos, chips, bretzles, etc.- or sugar -cookies, carbonate water
like Pepsi, candies. Am I right? The best way of not eating junk food
is still not to buy it! Could it be simplier than that???

--

Annie -- You're an inspiration! Keep chewing through those leather
straps!

I gotta agree wholeheartedly with Mike. I like beer and a lot of other
things bad for me, so I'm not buying them, not taking them home, not
having them stare me in the face. Some people say that to "cure" the
eating problem, one has to be strong enough to have just a little bit
of food in the midst of an "all you can eat line." That ain't gonna
happen to me any time soon. That is, far better for me to just stay
the heck away from the all you can eat environments.

In psychology, people talk about "response cost" -- and really this is
the "hassle factor" of doing something. Make it more difficult to do
(like packaging cigarettes in individual little wrappings) and people
will do it less. (If I lived close to a tuna sub sandwich maker, I'd
be in real trouble.)

I doubt if there are many people with less will-power than I usually
have, but for the next several months anyway (and I hope thereafter),
I'm going to avoid junk foods. After one has done it for a while, it
really isn't so bad. I sure agree with Annie that substitute foods
help take the bite out of saying "no" to the things we enjoy.

Also, Dr. Dean Edell limites the number of meals he eats a day to two
or less. Dr. Mattson (who is starting an incredibly interesting study
on the health effects of skipping meals) limits the meals he eats.
(I'd be willing to wager that his findings will show that skipping
meals is healthier than the traditional three meals a day, and
probably a heck of a lot healthier than three meals a day plus
snacks.)

I've gone days without eating at times and it really didn't bother me
all that much. I do think that the media and a lot of other sources of
input (I wouldn't call it factual) warn us of skipping even several
hours of meals, but this seems to be nonsense to me. (As Dr. Mattson
has noted, if humans were that fragile, we would have died out
hundreds of thousands of years ago.)

(I posted the following previously on this newsgroup and it may be of
interest to some:
************************************************** **

See the article at http://www.psychologytoday.com/htdoc...826-000018.asp

From the article is this:

"Intermittent fasting is a much more palatable lifestyle than the
continual self-denial of a highly calorie-restricted diet, says Judith
S. Stern, Sc.D., vice president of the American Obesity Association.
"You can almost have your cake and eat it too."

"Study author Mark Mattson, Ph.D., hypothesizes that intermittent
fasting works because each fast is a mild stress. The animals respond
by increasing production of substances known as stress-resistance
proteins, which may make them more resistant to disease. In addition,
the intermittently fasting mice produce more of a chemical called
brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which promotes learning,
memory and the growth and survival of nerve cells. This BDNF appears
to make the animals more resistant to a neurotoxin that produces brain
damage similar to Alzheimer's disease, Mattson says.

"The intermittently fasting animals' cells also become more adept at
scavenging glucose from blood. That, says Mattson, is an antidiabetic
effect, detectable on glucose tolerance tests."

The article, "Fasting Away Disease? By Richard Lovett -- Publication
Date: Jul/Aug 2003" seems well worth reading.

The first paragraph of that article is: "Your mother may have been
wrong: skipping meals may be good for you. It has been known for years
that sharply restricting the calorie intake of laboratory animals
increases their life span. But a new study by researchers from the
National Institute on Aging found that mice that fasted every other
day, then were allowed to eat what they wanted on the intervening
days, seemed more resistant to diabetes than did control mice or
animals on calorie-restricted diets. They were also resistant to a
condition similar to Alzheimer's disease."

Of course it should be stressed that these research results are
preliminary, apparently have not yet been replicated in humans, and
skipping meals or engaging in fasts may be harmful for some people.
But...
************************************************** *************************
I hope everyone finds a way to do what is healthy for them!

Yours,

Caleb


(Denis Morissette) wrote in message . com...
(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message . com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

I think the rage for junk foods is actually rage for either salt
-cheetos, chips, bretzles, etc.- or sugar -cookies, carbonate water
like Pepsi, candies. Am I right? The best way of not eating junk food
is still not to buy it! Could it be simplier than that???

And what is a psychologist going to tell me? How can he help me?

Denis

LazyEights wrote in message ...
Talk to a psychologist who understands addictions.

Lazy

On 8/22/04 9:37 AM, "Denis Morissette" wrote:

(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message
. com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

I think the rage for junk foods is actually rage for either salt
-cheetos, chips, bretzles, etc.- or sugar -cookies, carbonate water
like Pepsi, candies. Am I right? The best way of not eating junk food
is still not to buy it! Could it be simplier than that???

--

He will help you to understand why you crave as you do. Many psychologists
are expert at changing their patients' behavior. Your health insurance may
cover this.

Lazy
223/210/175

On 8/22/04 7:54 PM, "Denis Morissette" wrote:

And what is a psychologist going to tell me? How can he help me?

Denis

LazyEights wrote in message
...
Talk to a psychologist who understands addictions.

Lazy

On 8/22/04 9:37 AM, "Denis Morissette" wrote:

(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message
. com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

I think the rage for junk foods is actually rage for either salt
-cheetos, chips, bretzles, etc.- or sugar -cookies, carbonate water
like Pepsi, candies. Am I right? The best way of not eating junk food
is still not to buy it! Could it be simplier than that???

--

--

(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message . com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

It depends. If junk food does not make you fat, then go ahead. Eat
junk food, it is so good.

Denis

(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message . com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

My plan is to eat 1500 calories or so a day. If I eat junk food, then
it MUST be included in my 1500-calories limit. What works best for me
in losing weight is write down ***everything*** that goes into my
stomach and how much calories it brings. Let's say I have 3 slices of
bread with peanut butter for breakfast, then I write:

FOOD CALORIES UNUSED CALORIES
==================================== ========= ===============
3 slices of bread with peanut butter 400 1100

I have a "budget" of 1100 calories for the rest of the day. I can eat
whatever I want, but I will use up a maximum of 1100 calories.

(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message . com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!

That's why you have acne and a big belly, healthy.

I NEED HELP!

You don't need help. You need common sense.

WHY AM I DOING THIS?

Because you love it so much! Doing something we love is what matters
most in someone's life.

HOW CAN I GET HELP?

It may be helpless in your case.

WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

Yourself in the mirror!

Denis -- I like your system! (Of including the remaining calories.)
I'm going to try to do that today myself. It seems to me that in
someway it's like an analog clock versus a digital clock. At any rate
for me, an analog clock makes me more aware of how much time I have
left to do something. (Not only do I know the time, but I also know
automatically how many hours there are until six, or seven or the time
I walk, or...) With a digital clock, however, all I see is a starting
point of numbers.

Any other tips like that?

Yours,

Caleb

(Denis Morissette) wrote in message om...
(Healthy Stealthy wrote in message . com...
I CAN'T STOP EATING LARGE AMOUNTS OF JUNK FOOD!
I NEED HELP! WHY AM I DOING THIS?
HOW CAN I GET HELP? WHO SHOULD I SEE!!

My plan is to eat 1500 calories or so a day. If I eat junk food, then
it MUST be included in my 1500-calories limit. What works best for me
in losing weight is write down ***everything*** that goes into my
stomach and how much calories it brings. Let's say I have 3 slices of
bread with peanut butter for breakfast, then I write:

FOOD CALORIES UNUSED CALORIES
==================================== ========= ===============
3 slices of bread with peanut butter 400 1100

I have a "budget" of 1100 calories for the rest of the day. I can eat
whatever I want, but I will use up a maximum of 1100 calories.