Читать книгу Freedom from the Diet Trap: Slim for Life - Jason Vale, Jason Vale - Страница 39

One of the major problems with ‘food’ addiction is that the problem is visible because the most common symptom for many (although not all) is excess fat on the body. Think about it: no matter how many cigarettes someone smokes, they’re never called a black tar, nicotine-filled git or a cigarette-smoking bastard are they? Yet along with food addiction go the names and scathing attack on our characters: we get called gits and pigs – we’re never just fat are we? This is why so many people don’t reach obesity – because of how they will look. But they still have a food problem and are still constantly battling to control what they eat.

I used to feel very proud of myself if I managed to be good for a few days, or if I managed to control my intake of chocolate to the point where I only had it at weekends. I often used to cut down on the coffee and biscuits – put myself on the ‘food wagon’ if you will. There are people who do manage to exercise extreme control over their intake of trash food, but this is an awful way to go through life. If you have to exercise control over something, it must mean that that something is controlling you. It is the need to exercise control that means you are not in control as I alluded to previously. Confused? Let me put it this way. I do not have to exercise control over my banana intake, if I needed to discipline myself with my bananas then I would have a banana problem. For years smokers thought it was their genuine choice to smoke (in fact some people still retain this belief). However, when the ban came in and smokers were forced to stand outside their workplace in the freezing cold in order to get their fix, they started to realize they were not choosing to smoke, but had to (I know first-hand as I used to smoke 40–60 a day).

I do not know one single person who has to exercise control over their apple intake. Why? Because it is not a drug food. No chemicals have been added deliberately in order to compel you to overeat them. There is a natural cut off point. I also don’t know anyone who would have the slightest problem getting rid of apples from their diet if a doctor told them they caused heart disease, lethargy, weight gain, and premature death. Yet there are hundreds of thousands of people who, if you told them the same thing about coffee, chocolate, alcohol, crisps, or fast-food burgers for example, would say, ‘Up yours, life’s too short’ and continue eating them. Why? Because they are drug-like foods that compel people to want more and more, even if it goes against their rational judgement. Whether you actually have more and more is neither here nor there, it’s the wanting more that causes the real problem – the need to exercise control.