Legalising healthy foods.

I have been reading my way through "The Diet Survivor's Handbook" by Judith Matz and Ellen Frankel. It has a short chapter on something I never would have imagined having to do in my lifetime - legalising healthy foods.

They say:

Common examples might include apples, oranges, carrots, celery, cottage cheese and salads. You may find that now whenever you eat or think about eating one of these foods, you feel like you're back on a diet. As a result you avoid these foods, even if they are what your body naturally craves.

I know I was guilty of that a few weeks ago. Why have apples when you can have cream cakes?!
One word: satisfaction. You can't satisfy a craving for an apple with a cream cake, just as you can't satisfy a craving for a cream cake with an apple.

It reminds me of the calorie example in the Beyond Chocolate book. You want a mini roll, but instead you have enough healthy foods to equal the mini roll through the morning, then you go and have the mini roll anyway because you want it, then you've "blown it" so you eat two more! The moral of the story: if you resist what you want, you will end up eating your way round it before eventually eating it anyway because what you resist, persists! I know the example is a mini roll (usually a "bad" food) but it works just as well for healthy foods. If you eat something else because you are afraid of being "too good" (whatever that is!) then you will end up overeating just the same as when you were on a diet.

I am still craving fruit and vegetables like there will be none left tomorrow! When I imagine eating other foods, my intuition tells me they will sit too heavily in my stomach and I won't feel happy. Thank heavens the Tesco order is coming tomorrow, lots of lovely fruit and vegetables, yum!

The chapter I am just reaching now is chapter 20 - "Once you have become an attuned eater, reaching for food when you are not physically hungry signals that something is bothering you. Nudge yourself to learn more about feelings. This is something that I am just getting to grips with at the moment. I get fed up waiting to get hungry sometimes. My hunger signal is virtually none existant, even when I wait all day! Perhaps I need to drop that principle for a while, until I am off my anti-depressants when I will be able to figure out if the tablets are suppressing my appetite.