Deprivation makes us desire whatever we're missing

[miera_c]

At Will’s age, I’d spent so much of my life in forced denial. I could not remember how it was, as it must have been at some point, to eat a meal without a constant running tally of calories and fat grams thrumming in my head. I have to this day no memories prior to my early twenties, of eating anything, ever, and truly enjoying it. Eating was a

Comments

[havocthecat]

Occasionally, I think that I should do what other people do, and start counting calories. Then I think that I don't want to deal with that kind of obsessive attention to detail.

Then I read something like this, and I remember why I get hives at the idea of counting calories. I'm just not built for self-deprivation like that. I don't understand it.

(The long-winded way of saying, "Yay, FA!" I suppose.)

[miera_c]

I've actually never gone on a sustained calorie-counting diet. I already eat a relatively low-carb diet because of the hypoglycemia, and the carbs I do get are usually high fiber, but the whole obsessive counting of calories thing is not something I've ever done. I've never stuck to a diet other than the one medically prescribed for my condition for any length of time either. I suppose some would call that lack of willpower. I prefer to think of it as my common sense reasserting itself.

Also, I can't find the link right now, but I remember a post from a scientist about how our understanding of what is a calorie and how many calories we actually get from food is based on archaic science and probably wildly inaccurate, so there's that problem as well.