Got a sad email lamenting a weekend binge. This is from someone who felt she was on the right track. She’d had several days of no bread/no sweets, and then boom, she started eating Friday night, and couldn’t stop until Sunday. The question was, What To Do Now?
I’m going to answer that, and I’m going to address how to conquer the desire to binge.
To start with, don’t do any thing drastic, like starve for the whole day, or just eat chicken, or submit to hours of exercise, or any other step that could possibly “purge” your body of the unwanted calories or pounds.
If you do, you’ll be perpetuating the Diet Ferris Wheel: Diet/starve/restrict your food, get super hungry, give in and overeat . Feel terrible about yourself. Diet/starve/restrict your food, get super hungry, give in, and overeat. Feel terrible about yourself. etc etc etc.
As long as you think of food, and your weight, as ‘calories in – calories out, food is all about the calories ‘, YOU’RE DOOMED TO A LIFETIME OF THE DIET FERRIS WHEEL.. There’s no long-term success with low-cal, low-fat diets, or Any Diet, with a calorie based mentality.
If you want to lose weight and get healthy, if you want to Conquer the Desire to Binge, you HAVE TO CHANGE YOUR THINKING. Honestly, it’s Not About The Food, It’s About Your Mind.
Please, just for a few minutes consider this statement: “Fat Doesn’t Make You Fat; Simple, Refined Carbs and Hydrogenated Oils make you Fat. (they also destroy your health) Fats are actually HEALTHY, and a MAJOR component of our bodies cells, organs, hormones, and brain matter. Low fat eating causes our body to run Improperly, our brain to malfunction, and sets us up for CRAVINGS that can’t be ignored. “
If you want to get to your Cravings Under Control, you have to believe that above statement, and then eat accordingly.
Give up the high-carb breakfast cereals and bagels, the mid-morning Starbucks junk, the 
lunchtime sandwich and chips, the lowfat granola bars and yogurts, the pastas for dinner, and the diet desserts. These foods induce a pattern of High Blood Sugar – Low Blood Sugar, which stresses the liver (the main source of your metabolism), increases Cortisol production (more belly fat), slows down your Thyroid, and depletes your brain of Serotonin and Dopamine, and all these come together to STIMULATE A HUGE CRAVING FOR MORE CARBS ( ever craved chicken or kale?) It doesn’t matter if the foods listed above are low/ no/ calorie/fat, and your days calorie count is only 1000. They’re all huge sources of refined, processed carbs, hydrogenated oils, and chemicals. (The Standard American Diet Plan can NOT get you thin – but it sure can make you crazy!)
Want to lose the cravings? Switch from a mindset of trying to lose your pounds but keep your indulgences, to looking forward to and loving the foods that build our body and our mind: meats, eggs, vegetables covered with butter or olive oil, coconut oils and butters, whole dairy products, some fruit, some nuts, and some seeds.
Feed your body the right foods, and HONESTLY, you will tame your appetite! Why do you think you only crave junk? There’s a malfunction from the calorie restriction and food choices. Now it’s time to fix that, and it is fixable. You can break your bondage to foods. Don’t be scared of Real Whole Foods, with all it’s fat attached. Really, what do you have to lose?
Recipe from PaleoOMG for Chicken Avacado Salad – DELICIOUS!!
- 1 pound skinless, boneless chicken
- 3 tablespoons fat of choice (I used duck fat)
- 4 stalks of celery, diced
- 1 avocado, skin removed, cubed
- 1-2 teaspoons fresh tarragon, minced
- 1-2 teaspoons fresh thyme, minced
- 1-2 teaspoons fresh dill, minced
- juice of ½ a lemon
- salt and pepper, to taste
- 2 egg yolks
- juice of ½ a lemon
- ½ cup avocado oil
- pinch of salt and pepper
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
- Place chicken in a glass baking dish, pour some fat over each chicken breast, and sprinkle with a bit of salt and pepper.
- Put in preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes, or until chicken is cooked through. Then place the chicken in the refrigerator to help cool for a refreshing chicken salad.
- Now for the mayo. Avocado oil is the best for this mayo. The flavor isn’t very overwhelming so you can taste all the other flavors in this dish. So this is how you make the mayo.
- In your food processor, add egg yolks and lemon and puree to combine. Once they are mixed well, turn food processor back on and begin to pour the avocado oil in VERY SLOWLY. I mean super slow. Tablespoon by tablespoon, dripping in there very slow. Did I say slow?
- As you mix in the avocado oil very slowly, it will begin to thicken and create a mayo consistency. Be patient. And add more oil as needed to help thicken it even more. Place mayo in a container and into the fridge to keep cool while you finish off the salad.
- Dice up the now cooled chicken into ½-1 inch cubes.
- To a large bowl, add the cooked and cooled chicken, cubed avocado, fresh herbs, all the mayo, lemon juice, and a bit of salt and pepper. Taste to see if it needs more of anything.
- Wrap the chicken salad in some butter lettuce leaves OR just eat it by itself. Whatever you want to do.