{"id":2113,"date":"2009-06-24T06:11:46","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T04:11:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.ultimatefatburner.com\/?p=2113"},"modified":"2015-02-15T00:33:54","modified_gmt":"2015-02-15T05:33:54","slug":"perceptual-shifts-craving-control","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/perceptual-shifts-craving-control\/","title":{"rendered":"“Perceptual Shifts” and Craving Control"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the course of\u00a0surfing the NYT this morning, I stopped to read\u00a0a short review of Dr. David Kessler’s book, “The End of Overeating”<\/a>.\u00a0 One point in particular really leaped out:<\/p>\n

Planned and structured eating and understanding your personal food triggers are essential. In addition, educating yourself about food can help alter your perceptions about what types of food are desirable. Just as many of us now find cigarettes repulsive, Dr. Kessler argues that we can also undergo similar \u201cperceptual shifts\u201d about large portion sizes and processed foods.<\/strong> For instance, he notes that when people who once loved to eat steak become vegetarians, they typically begin to view animal protein as disgusting.<\/p>\n

The advice is certainly not a quick fix or a guarantee, but Dr. Kessler said that educating himself in the course of writing the book had helped him gain control over his eating<\/strong>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

(emphasis mine)<\/p>\n

This rings true to me, as it\u00a0tracks\u00a0with my experience.\u00a0\u00a0Back when\u00a0I was in high school, I was slender, although I was frequently gaining and losing the same\u00a05 –\u00a010\u00a0pounds.\u00a0 I’d eat crap, like many teenagers do, then go through a period of rigid dieting…wash, rinse, repeat.\u00a0 I could exert strong “food discipline” in bursts, but couldn’t maintain it over the long term.\u00a0 My diets were too restrictive and plain, while the “real stuff” was soooo tempting!<\/p>\n

Things are very different now.\u00a0 I\u00a0became fascinated by nutrition during those high school years,\u00a0and\u00a0the books I\u00a0constantly checked out of the library\u00a0helped me develop\u00a0a preference for\u00a0unrefined\/minimally processed foods.\u00a0 This was intensified by my (eventual) college major: Food Science.\u00a0 During my years in the Food Science and Technology Dept. at UC Davis, I got a\u00a0first class education in how the food industry works.\u00a0 While the conspiracy theorists and “food-as-religion”\u00a0types\u00a0make me laugh, at the same time, it’s painfully true that many (too many!)\u00a0food products are about taste\/texture, rather than substance.\u00a0\u00a0Over time, I learned to “see” past the sensory aspects of food products\u00a0and evaluate\u00a0them on the basis of their nutrient density… ultimately, how “real” they were, beneath the surface.<\/p>\n

Like\u00a0Dr. Kessler, I credit my control over food\/eating\u00a0to this awareness…Thanks to the shift in how I\u00a0view food, I don’t have to oscillate between rigid discipline and over-indulgence anymore.\u00a0 I won’t deny that it took a while – it takes time for attitudes to change and a coherent set of values to evolve.\u00a0 But – in my opinion – it was infinitely worth the time it took.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the course of\u00a0surfing the NYT this morning, I stopped to read\u00a0a short review of Dr. David Kessler’s book, “The End of Overeating”.\u00a0 One point in particular really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,14,28],"tags":[423,447,466,581,1862,1235,1261],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2113"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8722,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2113\/revisions\/8722"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2113"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2113"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ultimatefatburner.com\/ufb-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2113"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}