How to be able to differentiate cravings from the needs of the body, or how to stop food schizophrenia.

 

 

 

 

 

«Health is the most valuable and the easiest thing to lose; it is, however, the most badly kept.»
Beauchêne.

 

 

 

 

Hello, young Padawan

 

Here we are, it deserved a whole article.

 

Even if we have already talked about it a little here, and there, we are going to focus today on why some humans want food that is bad for their health or even that makes them sick, while convincing themselves that: “a little pleasure does not harm”, “guilty pleasure is good for the mind”, “he deserved it because he had a bad day” … knowing that it is Friday and that since Monday, it is far from the first mental bullshit to have arrived at his brain and his poor stomach that cannot stand it anymore.

 

So I will humbly try to give you some keys so that you can finally say about your body: I’m the boss, goddammit! And believe me, it will free your mind. A lot!

 

 

 

The brain’s whims, or almost

If you want a cookie, some fries or a hotdog, it’s cravings; on the other hand, if you want an apple, some cucumber or pumpkin, it’s a need. Do you understand the difference? Of course, you do. Your brain communicates these desires indeed, but this is not the starting point. Your cravings for sweets or fat come from your intestines. Let me explain :

 

We become what we eat, and that should be taught to us at school.

 

It is probably important to know what color was Henri IV’s white horse, certainly, but it could have been beneficial to have a minimum of information on how the body works at school, too bad, but back to the topic. When you eat something, food arrives in your guts, and then all the magic happens (see my article on the intestines, to be translated very soon). In fact, inside your intestines lives a microscopic world populated by all sorts of hierarchical bacteria, feeding on what you eat.

 

So you should logically decide their fate of life or death over them in some ways because depending on what you eat, you feed them or not. Except that it is not that simple because some of them have the fist of fury (Bruce Lee already knew it, lol, ed). So we are what we eat … if we control our alimentary bolus.

Some bacteria are more harmful than others (the Bruce Lee bacteria, ed) and have a much greater power than we can imagine since they have the ability to send messages to our brain. Messages asking you to eat this or that food, like a slave to his master, with you, in the role of the slave. At this point, we become what we eat.

 

That’s why when you eat a little too fat or too sweet, after a few hours, you’re craving again (inter alia, see my article on the glycemic index, ed). It is the bacteria of our intestine that seek to control us to multiply more and more, until acidosis, meaning the excess of harmful bacteria in the intestine resulting in intestinal porosity. The bad bacteria pass the intestinal barrier to enter the body and create acid foci, fungal attacks such as mycosis, tendinitis, osteoporosis, rheumatism, ENT problems, and even heart disease. Happiness.

 

 

 

Do not confuse nutritious foods with caloric foods

In fries or brownies, you will only find empty calories. Carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, but no nutritional value in terms of micronutrients. These cravings come from your intestines via your brain, like an alcoholic needs his bottle of whiskey, or a cocaine addict his shoot.

 

A nourishing food, it is a natural food, not transformed by the hands of Humans and which will bring you all the vitamins and minerals necessary for the health of your organism with, obviously, its rate of carbohydrates, lipids, and proteins. Example: fruits and vegetables, oilseeds …

 

It is essential to know how to differentiate hunger from cravings and that it is very easy: if you have “supposedly” hunger: eat an apple or a plate of Brussels sprouts. If in your head you’re already telling me: “blah blah I prefer a waffle or cheddar pasta,” you have your answer: it’s not hunger, it’s cravings. The desire that your bad bacteria ordered to your brain to make, through hormones, to deceive you.

 

 

 

Sugar, fat, a drug?

Yes. Why?

 

Because Nature had not planned that one day we would refine natural products to turn them into concentrated sugar or fat. Or both. It’s too bad. It’s a bit like the petroleum that makes fuel or plastics and pollution.

 

It does not mean that we must become an obsessive of the balanced diet. The goal is to eat in order to feed our bodies every day, and from time to time, we consciously decide to celebrate. But from time to time … because a little junk food too frequently leads to a terrible shit (It was necessary to put the word shit in an article on the intestines anyway. I told you: 14 years old of mental age, ed).

 

 

 

Learn to manage

With these chemicals foods, transformed, created by industry specifically to create us cravings, we have no choice: we must learn to manage. Unless you want to live naked in the woods, pick blueberries and scratch worms under the stones, there are not a million solutions, you have to learn to be strong. Strong in front of society, strong in front of temptation, strong in front of your social circle.

 

How is it that you accept the frustration of not being able to buy a Lamborghini or go to Mars if that is your dream, but you cannot resist a pizza or a doughnut? No, you cannot steal a rocket and go to Mars, no, you cannot steal your health and eat processed products every day, it’s the same logic though, or almost. The difference is a free trip to Guantanamo.

If one day you were already surprised to think that an alcoholic or a cocaine addict was weak, know that you should never touch it because you are in the addiction just like them. We are addicts. Except that the food junkie is doing better socially, I grant you it’s less messy, but does this situation really suit you? I reassure you I have been like that, like (almost) everyone. But today, hello, my name is Caro and I got myself definitely out of it.

 

How? by refusing all invitations and staying at home with my basket of fruits and vegetables (organic, the basket, of course! ed). Nah, I’m kidding of course.

By sparring like a boxer, to receive punches. Facing this society where almost everything in front of us is bad for health, we must challenge our body to become strong against temptations, but with intelligence, and finally, we try to find solutions.

 

 

 

Effective solutions

At first, your organism has to be back on a normal behavior with foods, you cannot implement the Rambo method if you have never lived in the jungle, you see? Clearly, if you’re still obsessed with modern food you must detoxify.

 

The intermittent fasting can help you get your hormonal clocks back on time (see my article here). Basically you decide, for example, to skip the breakfast and eat only from 12 to 8 pm (or 1 to 9 pm …), leaving your body free for 16 hours a day, so it can regain hormonal health, letting your liver empty a little of all its accumulated sugar (aka its glycogen stores, Ed.), etc. And you will also be as energized as a teenager again, never tired anymore, happiness! A little will at first and after a few weeks it’s natural. To make it easier it is advisable to eat healthily, meaning not too rich, especially at the evening meal so as not to trigger the insulin too strong that causes false “hunger” too (The call of sugar. Stronger than the call of duty lol, ed).

 

Here again, a disclaimer, to tell your doctor about it before to do it, but one who is aware of the intermittent fasting of course, not one who left his studies at Jules Caesar’s time and never updated his knowledge since then. Knowing once again that in many countries, fasting is a treatment partner against many diseases like people with diabetes, people with cholesterol, cancer patients are fasting too, before and between chemos, and that works well on them.

 

If this is not enough and you still have some cravings despite a balanced diet and intermittent fasting set up for more than a month (often an overweight body has a higher number of bad intestinal bacteria, ed.), you can consider removing the sugar and industrial fat for a month, while keeping the intermittent fasting of course, meaning you still eat fruits, a half avocado from time to time, nuts, almonds. .. (in short: to cut the industrial products only. We do not foolishly starve, ed). Making a gift of a few weeks of your life to our body, believe me, it is not expensive paid knowing all the services it gives us. We never thank our bodies enough, considering all that it undergoes and all the poisons that we give it to eat, trust me it deserves an Oscar.

 

 

 

The ordeal by fire

Once daily cravings have disappeared, it is good to give the beast a try: to put yourself to the test. By the mean of teaching your body and therefore yourself to resist after a fat and furious meal (my apologies for this one, lol. ed). As if we were asking a detoxed alcoholic for years to drink one glass of wine once or twice a week. Same pattern. You know I like Bruce Willis as an actor, he’s been an alcoholic, and since he has healed that’s what he does. From time to time he has a little glass of wine; he has become strong in front of alcohol. He masters. Bruce is great, Yeepee kay yay. Of course for other substances, or depending on the brain of the individual it can be impossible to do that. But with foods, we must.

 

Because you will agree with me that if you want to keep a minimum of social life, a few weeks without sugar or fat is feasible, but to do it longer becomes complicated and even counterproductive because without challenge the body becomes lazy. And it is not the purpose of becoming a food-obsessed guy that will make a liver crisis to the cookie that he agrees to eat every decade. The goal is to strengthen our organism. Like Rambo, we want to evolve in this food jungle like a hummingbird on a frangipani flower. Yes, I have a poet soul today, enjoy it it will not last.

 

And for that we eat healthy all week, i.e a balanced diet rich in fruits and vegetables without pesticides (or the least possible), and once or twice a week, during a meal: a fat and furious meal. For example Wednesday noon, I ate a pizza and dessert rich in fat and sugar. I have not been sick, I enjoyed it. The evening and the next day I had some cravings for fat/sugar but I stayed faithful to my tofu/vegetables/fruits because I know that tomorrow my body will have taken back its rights on these bad bacteria that were a little too fed the day before. The key is to prepare yourself and use your willingness for the next few hours. If you stay faithful to your good diet in this window, the harmful bacteria are no longer strong enough to send messages to your brain, and you are the winner: no more cravings. And the more you do that, the more you strengthen your body because after a few years (I do that for four years now, ed.), you almost no longer need will, it’s as if the bad bacteria were saying, “It doesn’t worth it Edgar, you know she won’t, I told you we should have chosen another host, that one is awful”.

 

Here is the real difference: it is the “a little every day” that causes bacterial disorders in the intestines and subsequently health problems. We need to learn to be 100% straight to our healthy diet every day and to have a fat and furious meal from time to time. And then you strengthen your body.

You may have noticed that I don’t use the word “cheat” meal. It is because, in French or in English, it is not part of my vocabulary. I do not cheat on my diet, on anything else either, I look at it right in the eye and face it. Yeah, remember, I’m a French arrogant! 😁

 

 

 

 

And now you have some sharpened machetes to sneak into the food jungle, even if like Rambo you did not ask for anything, even if “it wasn’t your war”, you are obliged to evolve with it, my little Padawan, so it’s better to do it strong and armed.

 

Flora power 🌺
Your faithful servant.

 

 

 

Sources :

The obesity code, Dr Jason Fung, ed. Scribe.

Dietary intervention impact on gut microbial gene richness

Dossier d’information de l’inserm sur le Microbiote intestinal (flore intestinale)