Am I really committing a crime against humanity?

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Replies

  • nooboots
    nooboots Posts: 480 Member
    WinoGelato wrote: »
    I have a legit question for the “abstainers”. And before I pose it I want to preface that I’m a “moderator” and I’m guilty of arguing that this is the best method for everyone, even with @kshama2001 in my early days I think (sorry!).

    But for the abstainers, is my presumption correct that the foods that are hard to moderate are a smaller number of specific foods? Not just “junk food”? KShama mentioned Ben and Jerry’s as being problematic. I remember another poster talking about ribs, someone else about cheesecake, someone about peanut butter m&ms.

    OP seems to be making these sweeping generalizations about anything that contains salt or sugar (and I think may be in the UK where I think NHS has done some campaigns about the evils of these ingredients and limiting them). This is the part that I feel may be problematic . Even those for whom abstinence is the best strategy usually understand the concept of trigger foods and don’t blame their overindulgence on “addiction”.

    This is the part that while harder to admit, may be better for OP on the long run to accept that certain foods are challenging but still completely within her control to say yes or no to.

    Thoughts from anyone?

    I have to abstain. I do it with foods that usually for no rhyme or reason will have me eating my way through everything in the house. Some foods are just triggers for me to eat and eat and eat. So stay away from them.

    I assume its just different for different people.

    Perhaps OP finds it helpful to use the term junk food, to help her recognise that those foods are not good for her in terms of keeping her on track, so they literally are 'junk' and that might be different to what other people think 'junk food' is, thats ok, its her body and her mind that needs to work for her.

    I wouldnt have thought it matters what words she uses for the reason for staying away from certain foods, such as addiction, she has to make it work for her. Its all very well advising the OP to accept this or that 'in the long run' but she is struggling now to ensure that she keeps her weight under control. I havent heard (although I must admit I didnt read the whole thread) that she is saying she isnt in control to saying yes or no, she is saying she is trying to say no but then gets pestered by people to say yes (she doesnt say I think whether she ends up saying yes).

    The problem is, unless you do experience these triggers, its easy to feel the sense of control about food that us abstainers dont have. On paper of course I have the agency to say no to more cake/pizza/crisps etc etc if I were to have a little bit, in practice I dont have that power within me. I could spend years in therapy (Ive already had several period of therapy in my life which were helpful but havent changed this) learning how to do that but in the mean time I would still be overweight. Therefore my 'therapy' is abstaining (at present, who knows what the future might nold)
  • pinuplove
    pinuplove Posts: 12,874 Member
    Re the little tangent of not throwing out food because people are starving somewhere else.

    My husband, who is over weight, has this thing about eating all the food on his plate, eating the last peice of cake etc so it doesnt get wasted because when he was a child they were hammered with this Eat it all, think of starving children in Africa/India/China/Somewhere

    Although rationally, whether he eats the above or throws it out or gives it to the dog make zero difference to anyone else in the world.

    If he wanted to do something planned, like not buy packets of biscuits or make some other cost saving change to his diet and donate that money to Savethechildren or similar, that would make sense.

    Just not eating or not eating random excess food does not.

    I had to break myself of that habit, too. Now I consciously tell myself it is no less wasteful to eat food beyond what I need just because it's there than it is to throw it away, and far more inconvenient and unhealthy in the long run.

    Having 2 teenagers in the house also helps...
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    lemurcat2 wrote: »
    Processed and ultra processed are not the same. Frozen spinach is processed. Whole grain bread is processed, rolled oats are processed, canned tomatoes are processed, cottage cheese is processed, smoked salmon is processed, boneless, skinless chicken breast is processed.

    Ironically, the link defines ultraprocessed as microwavable and ready to eat, so would not include the oh so evil homemade pie.

    But again not the topic of this thread.

    While you are correct that processed and ultra processed are not the same, everyone I know IRL, along with most new posters on MFP, say "processed" when they mean "ultra processed".

    This is the first I time I remember seeing the term ultra processed used. The subject was confusing as it was so adding this layer just makes my head hurt.




  • SueSueDio
    SueSueDio Posts: 4,796 Member

    This reminds me of my mom getting me to eat stuff I hated when I was a kid. "Don't you know that there are starving kids in the world?" Always wanted to say, "Well, then mail this to them!" but I knew I would've gotten a smack or ten for that. :/

    I used to get those comments too, when I didn't want to eat something. And I did use that response more than once! I rarely got a smack for it, but I often got told off for talking back to my mum. Didn't make any difference to my refusal to eat things I didn't like, though!