Everyone has already made the key points, but I’ll jump on this a little more: you’re unlikely to just deprive yourself of food you want. What you want to do is replace the self-sabotage foods with goal-oriented ones. Practically speaking, I’m saying don’t get so hungry you can’t help yourself. Obviously, at some point, you’ll get a little hungrier than you are when gaining, but you shouldn’t feel these life or death swings. It’s a lot easier to resist the hash browns when you just had egg whites and an apple, because you’re full.
3 Likes
This is a great point. Diets based on restriction tend to fail because the trainees just fixate on what they CAN’T have. Diets based on inclusion tend to have higher success rates, because the focus is on what we’re ADDING to the diet, and often these additions crowd out other stuff. Stan Efferding talks about this in “The Vertical Diet”, and Dan John had this great quote on the subject
“A woman once asked me if I knew a diet where you could eat anything you wanted. I said yes, but first she’d have to eat two pounds of salmon, three cups of oatmeal, a cup of blueberries, two bowls of mixed vegetables, and a carton of cottage cheese. After she finished that each day, she could eat anything she wanted.”
4 Likes
This is something that is important in my house. If there isn’t junk available and I have a sweet tooth, the worst I can do is hit the raisins pretty hard. Is that great ? No, but it beats the hell out of pop tarts. Eat more nutrient dense foods and your body won’t crave filler. It will take a while to break the addiction of sugar and ultraprocessed foods, but once you do, it will be easier and you will feel better. I have found that reminding myself that I don’t eat those foods makes it easier. Saying I can’t just makes me want them more.
5 Likes
I never eat at my hospital. The food doesn’t qualify as food. It’s something you can eat, but it isn’t food by any real measure. If I were you I would meal prep your lunch and snacks and only eat what you bring with you.
Healthy people typically don’t need a hospital. I’m not sure that they don’t intentionally feed you food that makes you sick to ensure repeat customers.
3 Likes
.
That was at the cafeteria! I was in there for my check up and wanted to grab a bite.
You know what I ended up with? Grilled cheese. Not even like whole wheat 7 grain. Just gooey whitebread soaked in industrial cooktop lubricant. Cuz it wasn’t fucking butter, thats for sure!
Last thing I remember rolling into the cath lab was “Did he have the grilled cheese???”
3 Likes
I still giggle at the notion that a grilled cheese sandwich is most often fried, not grilled, and the cheese is, in fact, not cheese but “cheese product”, made of oil.
Because a “fried oil sandwich” sounds like the most American thing ever.
4 Likes
Slap a “Pennzoil” logo on it and it becomes a chamois for the tires!
Also sounds way better than “fried yellow ooblek and C⁶H¹²O⁶”
3 Likes
Several of the people I work with eat the cafeteria food for lunch. I can’t do it. The wrappers are all soaked in grease. And yeah, the grilled cheese is just nasty. I mean, I’m sure it hits all the hyper palatability notes and all, but yuck. Even when I was an inpatient it was horrible. Trying to find actual food on the menu was nearly impossible. I think I lived on plain oatmeal black coffee and fruit cups.
2 Likes
Water or zero sugar sodas, I have come to dislike anything sugary drinks, they taste to thick and give me headaches.
1 Like
The inpatient menu is awesome! Butterscotch pudding and some other stuff.
I think in institutional settings like that you have to make friends with the food prep staff. My neices worked in the cafeteria at VT and they loved it. Had the cheat code for all the good stuff.
1 Like
I like these points too. If you’re not in fight or flight hunger mode, you can look at a cookie and make a rational decision. “Do I really want this? I have goals, and that thing isn’t going to help.” Over time, you’re just not a cookie eater - to a softer version of @RT_Nomad’s “train the discipline” point, you built a habit (and habits become identity). That’s going to stick a lot longer than constant self-denial.
2 Likes
This leads to how you see yourself, which becomes self fulfilling prophecy. I’ve finally stopped saying that I’m a person who can’t stop once I start. Took me a while to realize that it was just my way of excusing what I was doing. Well, I ate one cookie and we all know I can’t stop once I start, so I guess I have to eat 15.
Question wasn’t to me, but my answer is to fix one meal at a time. Give yourself two weeks to make a good breakfast a habit, then work on lunch, two weeks, dinner, two weeks, snacks. And maybe try to make your night time snack into something protein heavy so you are full and don’t eat crap all night.
3 Likes
Agreed - protein, lol - I think you misspell it to fuck with me.
What kind of meals or snacks do you usually eat in a day? Focusing on high-protein, fiber-rich foods and spreading them across 4–6 meals can help control your hunger. Pair that with a slight calorie deficit and regular gym sessions, and you can lower bodyfat while keeping strength. You can also try strategies from BetterMe’s Corporate Wellness Week, which promotes building healthy routines, tracking nutrition, staying active, and using habit reminders—these tools make it easier to manage high food drive and stay consistent with fat-loss goals.
This topic was automatically closed 14 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.