I have come to wonder if we do “love” something, when some thing does not love us back.

We might be using the wrong words for this concept, which then makes us think of it in wrong ways. Eating certain foods make us want MORE of them: which isn’t what foods are supposed to do! My current plan, VLC aka Ketosis, is Atkins Induction with a Paleo spin (no seed oils or Frankenfoods, eliminate most artificial sweeteners, simple and fresh focus) has revamped my relationship with food.

I eat something, it SATISFIES ME, and I don’t want to eat again until I’m really hungry.

Now, that is the way food should behave. Eating a food and triggering a craving to eat more and more of it... that’s more like... an addictive drug.

There’s science behind that assertion. Wheat uses opiod receptors in the brain, and sugar increases dopamine. As a highly stressed, poverty-stricken teen, I got hooked on the drugs I could afford: candy, pizza, ice cream, cake. They worked: I felt better and calmer. But only temporarily, and they made me fat and sick and gave me a binge-eating disorder.

Now, I only love a food when that food loves me back: it nourishes me, satisfies me, and lets me do my own thing until we meet again. Like a good life partner should

Those other “foods”? They are like that date who seems sooooo nice and sooooo great until we find out they are manipulative liars who only care about themselves. All of us can find it difficult to ditch them when we only think about how great they were... when they were conning us.

Dump the bad dates. Dump the bad foods. Their promises don’t come true in the way we really want them to.