Seeking Reprogramming advice

You are missing eating foods you like..

and you are addicted to additives, (fat and sugar)

The only way to stop the craving is to eat healthy foods until you are fuill and flat out resist the cravings, until they stop. Try duplicating the flavor or crunch of those things at home using healthy food. I know my sweet tooth is happy with fresh pineapple. and my crunch tooth is happy with homemade potato chips.

I have an open diary and clean eating if you want idea and my blog has good recipes in it.. including healthy chinese food.

Weight loss is mostly between your ears. As an adult you have to make the decision that you're doing to do something and stick with it. If you truly don't want to eat junk food then you'll avoid it. It's not a genetic marker and there's no drug. It's called willpower and you either want to succeed or you don't. Making excuses tells me that you haven't really committed to a change yet.

If it is a matter of craving those foods, take baby steps and start to prepare healthy versions of your favorite fast food meals. Look into food subsitutions to help you cut down on your calorie consumption.

If it is a matter of conveinence, I'm always packing around at least three snacks worth of veggies, nuts and usually some cheese (remember to excersize portion control with the latter). I've started to incorporate a mid-day protein shake to help satisfy my hunger as I was close to throwing all my progress out the window.

I have learned I stick to my plan best if I plan out my meals the night before, and leave a little wiggle room for error. I've kicked an A&W, McDonalds, and ice cream habit in the past month. I've replaced these with home cooked meals I look forward to. My favorite side dish is baked yams with coconut oil, they're my fry replacement. Turkey meatballs stuffed with monterey jack cheese, when I am craving a cheesy greasy burger. Frozen banana with almond butter and berries for a late night snack to replace ice cream. I've also learned how to prepare salmon, which is amazingly delicious.

I hope some of this helps! I've had so many experiences in the past of giving into cravings that just haven't been worth it. I'm doing really well with my progress right now, and the key is to not stress out too much when you give into a craving, and plan for success as best you can.

I call it the Sugar and Fat Withdrawl Syndrome.

It gets better. Plan your meals, cook at home more than eating out.

If you want to eat out- do your research about what you can get that's healthy and where you can get it. My Fiance' and I will eat out at 4 places. Jason's Deli, Panera, Paradise Bakery, La Madeline normally. Once a month we may hit Genghis Grill or Chuys type place to indulge.

Another thing you might focus on is how low your water intake "might" be. Our brain's can't tell the difference between the hormones of huger and thirst. Are you hungry or truely thirsty? Hard to tell.

Try drinking water when you feel hungry and see if that feels better. With as much fast food as you claim to crave I thing you would have high sodium issues. That makes you thirsty...and if we can't tell the difference between hunger and thirst...it turns into a cycle.

Weightloss is 80% mental. Realizing you have a bad habit is the start of breaking it Good Luck!

Here's another suggestion. I think you, your mind, and your taste buds are accustomed to the added sugar and fats. Besides all the willpower and substituting your cravings suggestions -- which will help immensely if you do them -- something else you can do is kinda reprogram your brain and tongue to not crave the fats and sugars as much. Here's how I did it (I used to weigh 240 lbs at my highest).

For 4 weeks don't count calories, don't worry about avoiding fast food 100%, don't worry about your sodium or anything like that. Just do this one thing:

100% avoid "high fructose corn syrup" and "trans fats" (or anything that contains "hydrogenated" or "partially hydrogenated" anything). Just avoid 100% those two phrases on ingredient labels of everything you eat and drink.

When you go to fast food or a restaurant or grocery store or convenience store, look at the ingredients before you buy it. I don't care how many calories it has. I don't care how much fat it has. I don't care if you eat the whole bag or not. Just look at the ingredients. If the ingredients say "high fructose corn syrup" or "hydrogenated" anything, put it back on the shelf. Pick something else. Pick a different brand.

Also note, if something at the grocery store doesn't have a label at all, that means it probably doesn't contain HFCS or trans fats.

Make those yummy treats fit in to your lifestyle. If you plan for treats and cheats, and make them fit in to your regular day every now and then, you're much more likely to succeed than if you were to completely cut them out of your life. Don't do anything you can't see yourself maintaining for the rest of your life.

This is kinda off-tangent, but it may apply to you -

I know it's hard to overcome the "easy & cheap" trap of fast/convenience food, especially when it comes to economic reasoning. I was raised with the economic thinking of "buy what is cheapest and what will suffice, rather than buy what is best product". So it took a lot to fight the habit of buying Taco Bell food (which I love - I grew up on 29 cent tacos and burritos - I know, my age is showing) for less than $5 than to get good, quality food and spend more.

I had to change my thought process. I have the remind myself that the "old" me ate crap, the "new and improved" me is willing to spend a little bit more for better stuff - b/c I'm worth it. That is the reprogramming.

Here's an interesting read that might tick you off enough to curb your appetite for fast/processed food....very interesting with good resources http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/1400069807

Here's an interesting read that might tick you off enough to curb your appetite for fast/processed food....very interesting with good resources http://www.amazon.com/Salt-Sugar-Fat-Giants-Hooked/dp/1400069807

Here is the description from the Amazon site:

Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us [Hardcover]
Michael Moss

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

From a Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter at The New York Times comes the explosive story of the rise of the processed food industry and its link to the emerging obesity epidemic. Michael Moss reveals how companies use salt, sugar, and fat to addict us and, more important, how we can fight back.

In the spring of 1999 the heads of the world’s largest processed food companies—from Coca-Cola to Nabisco—gathered at Pillsbury headquarters in Minneapolis for a secret meeting. On the agenda: the emerging epidemic of obesity, and what to do about it.

Increasingly, the salt-, sugar-, and fat-laden foods these companies produced were being linked to obesity, and a concerned Kraft executive took the stage to issue a warning: There would be a day of reckoning unless changes were made. This executive then launched into a damning PowerPoint presentation—114 slides in all—making the case that processed food companies could not afford to sit by, idle, as children grew sick and class-action lawyers lurked. To deny the problem, he said, is to court disaster.

When he was done, the most powerful person in the room—the CEO of General Mills—stood up to speak, clearly annoyed. And by the time he sat down, the meeting was over.

Since that day, with the industry in pursuit of its win-at-all-costs strategy, the situation has only grown more dire. Every year, the average American eats thirty-three pounds of cheese (triple what we ate in 1970) and seventy pounds of sugar (about twenty-two teaspoons a day). We ingest 8,500 milligrams of salt a day, double the recommended amount, and almost none of that comes from the shakers on our table. It comes from processed food. It’s no wonder, then, that one in three adults, and one in five kids, is clinically obese. It’s no wonder that twenty-six million Americans have diabetes, the processed food industry in the U.S. accounts for $1 trillion a year in sales, and the total economic cost of this health crisis is approaching $300 billion a year.

In Salt Sugar Fat, Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative reporter Michael Moss shows how we got here. Featuring examples from some of the most recognizable (and profitable) companies and brands of the last half century—including Kraft, Coca-Cola, Lunchables, Kellogg, Nestlé, Oreos, Cargill, Capri Sun, and many more—Moss’s explosive, empowering narrative is grounded in meticulous, often eye-opening research.

Moss takes us inside the labs where food scientists use cutting-edge technology to calculate the “bliss point” of sugary beverages or enhance the “mouthfeel” of fat by manipulating its chemical structure. He unearths marketing campaigns designed—in a technique adapted from tobacco companies—to redirect concerns about the health risks of their products: Dial back on one ingredient, pump up the other two, and tout the new line as “fat-free” or “low-salt.” He talks to concerned executives who confess that they could never produce truly healthy alternatives to their products even if serious regulation became a reality. Simply put: The industry itself would cease to exist without salt, sugar, and fat. Just as millions of “heavy users”—as the companies refer to their most ardent customers—are addicted to this seductive trio, so too are the companies that peddle them. You will never look at a nutrition label the same way again.

“As a feat of reporting and a public service, Salt Sugar Fat is a remarkable accomplishment.”—The New York Times Book Review

I don't know if it's age or just the fact that I've managed to mostly stay away from fast food for the past year or so, but I cannot stomach the thought of most fast food now. I was never a fast food burger fan, but I did really like KFC or a chicken sandwich at McDonalds. I do think that being forced to do more cooking at home has changed my tastes for the better.

So, maybe doing more meal planning and setting a goal for eating at home (or bringing lunch vs. eating out) x times per week, then upping that number as you get more accustomed to it?