Weight loss and conflicting motivations

I have a weird relationship with food. (Okay, I know, just about every dieter in the world can say the same!) I eat because things taste good, even if I’m not hungry. I don’t really do the emotional eating thing much. I do sometimes eat when I’m bored or need a break from work, but not very often. I sometimes overeat when I get too hungry, but most of the time, it’s just because I like the taste of things.

I’m a pretty picky eater, and sometimes I say that I wished I liked more things (especially vegetables) because it would be more convenient to eat healthfully. But when I stop and think about it, that would probably just mean more things to overeat (does anyone really overeat peas, though?) .

I’ve been reading The Shangri-La Diet and one of the claims of the theory is that it will make you want to eat less. I’ll get more into the specifics of the diet in another post, but one key thing is that you eat a few hundred calories per day of tasteless food, and it cuts back your desire for other foods.

I got to thinking about this, though, and my gut reaction was that I don’t want to not want yummy things. Sure, logically, it would be extremely convenient to just not have interest in scones and French fries and ice cream. But I enjoy those things, and it seems like if I didn’t like them so much, I’d lose some small pleasure in life.

Then again, people on the diet generally say that they still enjoy tasty food, but that their cravings have gone away. They can basically choose whether or not to indulge, rather than being compelled. I don’t know… my brain agrees with that concept, but it just sounds kind of sad somehow.

I guess the bottom-line issue is that I’m using food for pleasure and not just as fuel, and that’s always going to cause some conflicts. The unfortunate part is that I don’t really want to change that perspective, because the “food as fuel” religion just seems too utilitarian and un-fun to me. Somehow I need to change that attitude before I can figure out how to keep food in its rightful place.

Anyone had any luck with this?

ShareThis