A very large culprit is your gut’s microbiome (the bacteria that live in our gut). The more junk food you eat, the more you will grow your craving for it.
I’m not sure how much of it is microbiome related, but as someone who’s fallen into pretty bad junk food benders, I can absolutely concur that it’s self-fulfilling. I’ve spent hours awake staring at the ceiling in bed after eating what should be a fulfilling square 2,000 calories thinking about junk food.
The more you have the more you will crave it. There is a point where no part of you wants any junk food, but you have to abstain from it for a good while. You can crave the beans and the ground beef in your fridge, OP! You can absolutely find yourself craving a refreshing salad or a comforting baked potato. You learned to crave junk food, you can learn something else, even if it’s not as chemically engineered to make you want more of it. You can find yourself forcing down junk food in a simultaneous fit of disappointment and compulsion - if you’re forcing leafy greens down it’s at least not as existentially taxing.
I’ve also found success in surrounding myself with snacks or herbal teas that feel healthy. Yes a nut bar is full of sugar and calories, yes a fruity infusion won’t actually improve your health. Yes that extra goat cheese or can of sweet corn or tuna on the salad is making it heavier. But there’s nothing bad about finding more angles of attack to pull yourself away from the black hole that is fatty sugary oily super processed food.
I feel like junk food addiction is hard to talk about since you can get laughed at for it, it’s not crack, it’s a fucking hamburger. Nobody wants to hear about a grown ass man talk about how his willpower is surrendered to tendies. It’s fucking awful because food isn’t something you can quit cold turkey. So you have to go through a process of fending off cravings and that can be mentally annoying.
There’s also things around it that feel silly to discuss: being able to schedule and manage cooking and storing your own food, buying the right ingredients in the right amounts without finding a mold culture in your fridge twice a month, it can feel like you have to fight on many fronts. That’s where you really do need to figure out what works for you.
A very large culprit is your gut’s microbiome (the bacteria that live in our gut). The more junk food you eat, the more you will grow your craving for it.
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/202303/where-cravings-are-bred
I’m not sure how much of it is microbiome related, but as someone who’s fallen into pretty bad junk food benders, I can absolutely concur that it’s self-fulfilling. I’ve spent hours awake staring at the ceiling in bed after eating what should be a fulfilling square 2,000 calories thinking about junk food.
The more you have the more you will crave it. There is a point where no part of you wants any junk food, but you have to abstain from it for a good while. You can crave the beans and the ground beef in your fridge, OP! You can absolutely find yourself craving a refreshing salad or a comforting baked potato. You learned to crave junk food, you can learn something else, even if it’s not as chemically engineered to make you want more of it. You can find yourself forcing down junk food in a simultaneous fit of disappointment and compulsion - if you’re forcing leafy greens down it’s at least not as existentially taxing.
I’ve also found success in surrounding myself with snacks or herbal teas that feel healthy. Yes a nut bar is full of sugar and calories, yes a fruity infusion won’t actually improve your health. Yes that extra goat cheese or can of sweet corn or tuna on the salad is making it heavier. But there’s nothing bad about finding more angles of attack to pull yourself away from the black hole that is fatty sugary oily super processed food.
I feel like junk food addiction is hard to talk about since you can get laughed at for it, it’s not crack, it’s a fucking hamburger. Nobody wants to hear about a grown ass man talk about how his willpower is surrendered to tendies. It’s fucking awful because food isn’t something you can quit cold turkey. So you have to go through a process of fending off cravings and that can be mentally annoying.
There’s also things around it that feel silly to discuss: being able to schedule and manage cooking and storing your own food, buying the right ingredients in the right amounts without finding a mold culture in your fridge twice a month, it can feel like you have to fight on many fronts. That’s where you really do need to figure out what works for you.
This guy gets it.