How to NOT diet eat well and still lose weight Food addiction
How to NOT diet eat well and still lose weight Food addiction

Today is part 1 of the diet series entitled How to NOT diet eat well and still lose weight Food addiction.

“The second week of a diet is always easier than the first. By the second week, you’re off it.”  – Jackie Gleason

How to NOT diet eat well and still lose weight Food addiction

As many of you know, I am totally against any traditional diets; not because I’m anti-conformist…well, maybe I am anti-conformist, but that’s another story for a different time. I am against diets because diets in the traditional sense don’t work. There is nothing that anybody can do temporarily to make a lifelong change.

It’s the same premise where when a person wins a large sum of money or the lottery and a few years later they are usually worse off than before they had money. That person never cured the reason why they were broke in the first place – they never learned to handle money.

A few weeks ago in one of Julie’s slight excursions from one of her many jobs, we were at my house watching “The NEW newlywed game show” on the Game Show Network. The host of the show, Carnie Wilson of the former pop musical group Wilson Phillips, was apparently once a very big girl, then she had gastric bypass surgery, put the surgery on the internet, then she got hella skinny, does a lot of TV shows, posed nude for Playboy, and did the whole skinny girl Hollywood thing… now she is big again! Without even knowing her, I can tell you if that happened; she never cured her problem with food in the first place.

The Food Problem

Question: Why do over 75% of people who go on diets eventually gain the weight back and pack on even more?

Answer: Because diets have nothing to do with what you’re eating and everything to do why you’re eating what you eat.

Food is an Addiction

In general I eat very healthy; I am the go-to guy when it comes to health, food and fitness in my family. Most of the food in my cabinets is what most people consider “rabbit food” or “cardboard.” However, I do have a serious sweet tooth….one of that sweet tooth’s addictions is dark chocolate. OH how I loves me some dark chocolate! Some of that really good Belgian dark chocolate….oh man!

On the other hand, I am also sort of afraid of dark chocolate. Whenever I start to eat it, and maybe for some reason I maybe stressed out or whatever is going on in my life, I will go on a binge of dark chocolate. I’ll eat it for a few weeks straight, like a serious amount of it, sort of like a drug addict goes into relapse. As even as a health and fitness guy, I have that addiction gene, but not for drugs – for dark chocolate.  (Amazingly, Julie has the exact same issue.  Eats healthy, but watch out when her sweet tooth kicks in!!)

How to NOT diet eat well and still lose weight Food addiction

Food addiction, in most western worlds, is an epidemic. I lived in Japan for over 10 years, and while the Japanese are generally considered healthy, I can tell you that their food addiction is worse than America’s. The thing there is they actually have a healthy addiction with food. Over there, you can actually eat well at 7-11! Here in America, all you’re going to find at a 7-11 is a bunch of high sugar, high salt and fat laden chips and snacks that feed people’s addictions rather than curb it. Over there you can find sushi and unsweetened green and black tea in the refrigerator. If there is anything that I miss about Japan, it is the food.

Food is one of those addictions that is hard to manage because we humans need it to survive. This is much different than cocaine, PCP or cigarettes. Those are drugs that while they may be good to get high, they are not critical for survival. Eventually, a drug addict can be weaned off their drug of choice, but food is different. You can be trained to eat less and more healthy, but it’s something that you will always need to stay alive.

Lesson 1 – You’re not going to win a food fight

Think of food as a full grown wild African lion. I don’t care how bad ass you think you are, you’re not going to win a bare-fisted fight with it. So your best bet is to tame it and learn to live with it. Just because that lion lives in your house and dresses itself in a tuxedo or lives in a brightly colored cereal box does not mean that it’s not a full grown wild animal. You need to learn to respect it, but also learn to tame it.

This concludes part 1 of How to NOT diet eat well and still lose weight Food addiction.


Charles Lloyd
Charles Lloyd

Self processed fitness missionary and author of most of the ridiculous fitness articles written on Charles Lloyd Fitness.com. I am not really a writer, but a workout fiend who happens to have a blog. The single mission of this website is very simple: Get You In Shape. I have been blessed with the gift of good health and want to share it with you. Join Me.

    3 replies to "How to NOT diet eat well and still lose weight Food addiction"

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      Great site will visit again!!!! : )

    • lose weight in a week

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    • Sarah

      Very nice post thanks. i’ve featured your blog at my google reader thanks.

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