(I posted this on the Shangri-La Diet Forum:
http://boards.sethroberts.net/index.php?topic=7603.0 but thought that it would be good to post it here as well.)
I have come up with a new diet, which I am going to refer to as the Non-Addictive Food Diet for now. Here is what I’ve learned so far from following this diet:
1. Addictive foods are much more fattening than non-addictive food.
2. The body responds to addictive food like it’s a drug rather than a source of nourishment.
3. Which foods are addictive is unique to each individual.
4. One can do things to shift the level of addiction of a particular food.
5. Addiction can masquerade as intense hunger.
6. A diet that consists primarily of non-addictive food is healthy, nourishing, and satisfying.
7. It’s hard to overeat or gain weight when eating a diet of primarily non-addictive food.
8. The non-addictive food diet when combined with SLD is extraordinarily powerful.
I feel as though I have discovered the missing link that SLD did not address. Weight loss has been the most effortless that it’s ever been in my entire life. Weight has fallen off easier and quicker than it did during my initial days of SLD. I suspect that this diet may help others who are stuck at a plateau. Even though I discovered this diet through the enlightened tasting, I don’t think you need to do enlightened tasting to have it work. However, I do recommend that you do this diet in combination with whatever you are doing for SLD.
The only tricky part is figuring what foods you are addicted to and to what degree. For me this part is actually fun and enlightening.
Everything that you eat and drink can be placed into one of three categories:
1. Food that you know is non-addictive, healthy, and nourishing for you
2. Food that you are unsure about or food that may be somewhere in between
3. Food that you know is very addictive for you
For me the beauty of this diet is that you don’t have to eliminate all carbohydrate or all sugar – just the ones that are most addictive for you. However, you do have to stay observant and aware in order to figure out for yourself, which foods fall into which category. If you just start making changes to eat more of the food that you know is not addictive and avoid the food that is most addictive, then over time the rest will become clear.
For me most sugar and sweeteners are very addictive. However, carrots, beets, molasses, and a lot of fresh fruit is not. (I haven’t had a chance to test out many kinds of fruit yet.)
For me lots of chips, crackers, and bread are very addictive, but different kinds are addictive to different degrees. Whole grain bread is much more addictive for me than white bread. (I don’t really like most white bread. It is still addictive for me, but not to the degree of hearty dense whole grain breads.) I think that most whole grains if eaten plain are not addictive for me. (However, I haven’t had a chance to test a lot of them out yet.) If eaten with butter they are more addictive. If I sweeten them, then they become highly addictive.
I recently went to a pancake breakfast. I brought whole ground flaxseed with me. I ate my pancake with butter and flax, but avoided the maple syrup. This made the pancake far less addictive than it would have been with the maple syrup.
Vegetables even when doused in butter are not addictive for me. Potatoes doused in butter are very addictive. But potatoes mixed into soup are not. Pasta mixed into soup is not addictive. Eating very small amounts of pasta with lots of vegetables and sauce is okay for me, too.
Extra sharp cheddar cheese is highly addictive for me, while blue cheese is not. Melted cheese and cheese sauces are very addictive. Plain ricotta cheese is fine, but sweetened ricotta cheese is not, even if I sweeten it with a non-caloric sweetener. Cheesecake and cheese pastries are very big addictions for me. I recently bought some goat cheese with cranberries and nuts thinking that it would be too strange to be addictive. Well, I was wrong. The goat cheese tasted sweet and was very addictive for me. I suspect that most people would not be addicted to it though.
Eggs even when cooked in butter are not addictive for me. But eggs with melted cheese are addictive to a certain degree and so is egg salad.
Plain cream and all things coconut are addictive for me. It’s now blatantly obvious why platinum calories would not work for me.
I rarely drink alcoholic beverages, but I now know why they can sabotage someone's AS (appetite suppression) and most people’s diet efforts. The body responds to them as a drug rather than a nutrient source. I feel that the body responds to food that you are highly addicted to in the same fashion, even if those foods have some nutritional value.
I had no idea that I was addicted to this much food until I did this diet. I am not overweight and SLD has kept my cravings and eating of addictive food to a bare minimum. However, I did crave and eat dessert after every meal. And I regularly ate whole grain bread and creamy things. Mostly I channeled my cravings into healthier options such as unsweetened chocolate with raisins. It is only when I tried to give up all addictive food, that the full extent of my food addiction became apparent. What an eye opener it has been. Now when I eat food that I am addicted to, I feel a physiological response in my body. I feel like a drug addict craving a fix.
I have discovered that when I am tired I am most vulnerable to addictive food. I crave sugar and carbs then. A number of times I have come home thinking I was really hungry. But when I tried to find something healthy and nourishing to eat, none of my non-addictive foods were appealing. All I wanted was something sweet or starchy. My body was not actually hungry! I was astounded to realize that it was a false sense of hunger. It sure did feel like real hunger to me. Instead of eating, I did some enlightened tasting and the hunger went away. I would like to get some L-glutamine to try at those times as well.
Eating non-addictive food has been very pleasurable. I eat when I’m hungry and the food tastes good. I eat until I am completely full, satisfied, and content. I don’t feel deprived. I feel incredibly empowered from the knowledge and changes I am making. This diet has been more enlightening and healing for me than SLD. However, I wouldn't have been able to do this diet without combining it with SLD. SLD has muted my cravings enough so that this kind of experimentation is possible. When I nose clip an addicted food, it is still addictive but less so. Nose clipping did not eliminate my addictions, it just muted them. For me addiction is not completely rooted in the flavor of a food. It is goes deeper than that.
I feel very motivated to completely heal my life long addiction to food. I hope to fully decondition my body’s reaction to addictive food. Avoiding addictive food doesn’t cure the addiction. It’s too easy to channel the addiction into another food that seems healthier. I feel like I have the tools to actually heal the addiction, but it’s going to take more time and experimentation.