Trigger foods. Do you have any?
So you’re going along great, feeling good. Diet is on point, and you’re checking all the boxes. Yeah, feeling GOOD! “Hey, since I’m doing so well, and it is such a great day I think I’ll stop to get one of the cinnamon rolls I love. I need to reward myself for all my hard work.” That seems reasonable, except you know deep down inside that it will not stop with one cinnamon roll. Next thing is the chocolate marshmallows and “just a taste” of fudge from that craft store with the handmade candy counter, and a large pumpkin spiced latte with extra cream on the way home. Just one.
Well, let’s just let loose for today.
Well, it IS Friday after all so I can have a fun weekend then back on track come Monday.
That one bite, that one sip sends a cascade of “feel good” to your brain and you feel so RIGHT about the world and everything is awesome —- until 3 weeks later when your favorite jeans snap tighter, your skin has a dullness, you wake up with a weird headache every day and you feel ‘Less Than’ The floor of your car is littered with a number of pumpkin spice latte cups and empty food wrappers.
It can be any food that does this to us, though. It doesn’t have to be a cookie or a special treat. For some people fruit can do this. First let me say that FRUIT IS NOT BAD FOR MOST PEOPLE. But for some people that sweet taste can be a trigger derailing them into days of white knuckling to not overeat. It is easier for them to not eat fruit than to spend everyday struggling to not overeat, to not binge. Does that make sense? Eating a mango may be healthy, but if it causes you to overeat and binge to get more sweet tastes, is that still healthy? I argue no. It isn’t
My one professor argued with me about limiting a food group like fruit, carbs, nuts or dairy when I prescribed such a diet to one of my clients. “Moderation works, ” she’d say. Well, she’s right. Moderation does work for people who can moderate. A lot of people cannot moderate. For those people trying to live in a world of moderation puts them in a constant struggle of fighting urges, hating themselves for giving in again, shaming themselves for not being strong enough to resists, and then there is the extra chub that comes from overeating. Not everyone can moderate sweet tastes or chips or whatever food. If a food causes you to struggle in anyway, then stop eating it.
Back to my professor, I told her “if my client COULD moderate his food intake, he would not be 150 pounds overweight.” She stopped replying and approved my diet prescription which was a low carb ketogenic diet. My client could not eat a cookie or two cookies and be good. He would eat the entire package of cookies. He would only take 1 or 2 out of the package, but within a few hours, the package was empty. A family sized bag of anything would become a single serving. All of the tricks of trying to moderate failed him. All he thought about was his next meal even when he was eating his current meal, and he’d snack from meal to meal. Going on a low carb diet was a struggle for him at first but his motivation was high so he was able to push through mainly because he trusted that his cravings for these foods would diminish, and they did. He did tell me once that he missed certain foods but he did not ever want to go back to where he was with the uncontrolled eating and all that weight. He loved that he didn’t think about food all day. He loved that he could finish eating after a normal amount of food and feel satiated. THAT, my friend, is food freedom.
Now my professor would call a ketogenic diet as restrictive and unhealthy, but is it? If it reduces inflammation, gives someone control over their appetite, gives them all of the nutrients they need, how is that unhealthy? The freedom that comes from giving up the foods that make you feel weak, make you feel bloated, itchy and/or cranky is a good thing, in my opinion. I do know that sometimes there can be underlying mental health, trauma and addiction issues that can be resolved that can heal the food obsession and that topic is beyond the scope of this post. A well formulated ketogenic diet is a perfectly healthy and easy tool for many people, and can be that bridge from a troubled period in someone’s life, and thriving again.
I actually argued this, using her logic that restricting any food or groups of food is bad/wrong/restrictive/unhealthy, then tell me how that works for those with gluten issues. Or how about the people allergic to a food like nuts or dairy. I have a family member who is allergic to dairy. She does not consume any at all and hasn’t for years. How is that unhealthy? One could argue that an allergy or an intolerance is different than someone who cannot moderate their food intake, but is it? One’s symptoms are gastric distress, or sinus issues and the other’s issue are emotional distress. How come one issue is seen as a worthy thing and the other seen as “well, they just need to figure it out.” ???
They did figure it out. They stopped consuming the foods that caused distress, that made them feel weak and less than. They stopped consuming the foods that triggered them to overeat, that made them binge. If a food makes you bloat every time you eat it, do you continue to eat it? If a food makes you feel itchy, do you continue to eat it? Those foods are trigger foods. Any food that triggers a negative physical, mental, emotion response that is not beneficial to you, in my opinion. Most any nutrient in that food contained can be found in other foods. Let use all of the tools at our disposal. Nutrition, in my opinion, is one of the biggest levers for upgrading our health.
Tell me, what are those foods for you? I have many friends in the carnivore community that talk about how their joint pain comes back when they add in sweet potatoes to their diet, so they stop eating sweet potatoes. Some of them talk about how eating fruit causes them to crave sweets and then binge, so they don’t eat fruit. They feel more comfortable when they stay away from the foods that trigger their pain or their cravings or their emotions.
Personally, when this happens to me it is always so gradual. I try to eat seasonally, but some foods make me want more. Like watermelon. . . I can eat double the amount than anyone around me. Once I taste watermelon, it goes from something I have now and then, to something I have 1x a week to, holy cats, why am I having watermelon everyday? Or every time I visit my mom I end up eating nuts. LOTS of nuts. There is nothing inherently wrong with watermelon or nuts, but they disable my OFF switch. I can easily overeat either of these foods, and then do it again the next day and the next.
There are some people who are moderators, and, personally, I can moderate many foods like meat, eggs, chicken (especially chicken is self limiting to me). Then there are abstainers. For certain foods I abstain for various reason. Example: I don’t eat avocados often because they are high in histamines, and sometimes avocados create more problems for me than they don’t. Was it hard going from an avocado a day to zero avocados? Not really. I felt better by the end of the first day. I don’t even see avocados as food now because to me they aren’t food.
To figure this out for yourself, start logging your food and keeping a journal. You will start seeing patterns.
Every time you eat the granola from the corner kiosk at the food court at work, you get a dull headache. Notice that and journal what you’re experiencing.
Bloated again on Wednesday? Oh, wow. . . look at that. I have coffee at Bible study on Wednesday mornings. I wonder what is in that creamer they have there?
Your knee pain flares up every Sunday. . . then you notice in your food log that you have Big Mike’s Honeybaked Pizza every Saturday night. You switch out the pizza for some slow roasted Hawaiian brisket, and your knee pain stops.
Your food should not be a struggle. You do not have to white knuckle it every day. There is a lot of freedom when you get your food dialed in for you. Cravings can go away, some naggy health issues may go away and you just feel better. I think it is easier to eat the foods your body loves when you know what’s on the other side of those foods that trigger the negative things. I guess you have to ask yourself the question “do I want to feel amazing, strong, happy and resilient, or do I want to eat that honeybaked pizza and feel like crap for 3 days?”
What do you think?
