Looking at pictures of food

LaEliFish

I´m curious what others might think about this. I have the habit of looking at pictures of food, reading food blogs, and collecting recipes (although I rarely use them). The thing is, they are mostly foods that I cannot eat and maintain my weight loss goals. Sometimes when I get a craving for a particular food (say, pasta carbonara), I google it and look at the images. Could it be bad for me?

Does anyone else look at food like this? Is it cathartic or does it trigger your eating?

Behavior_Modification

Very interesting. That would totally trigger me. Or at least I think it would, although I've not experienced this in that order. Usually it is the pictures that come first and then the craving. I wonder if it would make it worse for me or not to get a craving and then look at pictures. Maybe when I get a craving I should go look up healthy food pictures that look appetizing. :huh:

Natihilator

Triggering for me, I don't get any sort of satisfaction from looking at pictures of food if I have a craving, it just makes the craving worse.

@Behaviour, look at healthy food pictures regularly and you just might start to crave them. I follow "pictures of healthy food" on tumblr and I do find that it influences my cravings. I never thought I would be someone to start drooling at a picture of a watermelon wedge dipped into yogurt and almonds, :laugh:

woou

I follow "pictures of healthy food" on tumblr and I do find that it influences my cravings. I never thought I would be someone to start drooling at a picture of a watermelon wedge dipped into yogurt and almonds, :laugh:

i'm not familiar with tumblr. could you recommend some good pages?

janiedoe111

I don't know that beautiful pictures of food would trigger a binge so much as make me want to binge on those foods. I avoid keeping heavy breads and pasta in the house which is what I typically crave.

Looking at these pictures regularly is a form of masochism for me. Self-punishment. Makes me jealous of people free of food issues. Nothing which helps me.

jilltaylor86

I definitely do this. I like to bake and have a major sweet tooth so I read a lot of baking blogs and save many recipes for pies and cookies and such. My pinterest food board is filled with a ton of dessert recipes.

mandasimba

I agree that it is very triggering. Even those awful TLC shows about the super morbidly obese... I've watched a few and they show what they eat and I sit there drooling, craving everything that they show. Most people say they get grossed out at the though, I sit there jealous and wanting all of that food!

@cloud. That is interesting... looking at pictures of healthy food, maybe I'll give that a go one day, when I'm feeling a binge coming on, maybe it will direct my mind to eat a dozen apples as opposed to a dozen cupcakes, lol!