Not sure about you, but anytime, I have something sweet – whether a strawberry, or an eclair, or some Baskin-Robbins MINT chocolate chip — it’s kind of not the end of things.

Whereas the average person might say, “that was dessert, that’s the end, let’s move on,” my brain or my whatever takes that sugar as a sign to want more, apparently. 

But it’s not just sweets. 

If I have white cheddar cheese popcorn, or Lays potato chips – you can’t have just one, after all! – you know that I am going to be craving nachos and bagel bites and hot pockets and aunt Annie’s pretzels for hours. 

And because water isn’t refreshing enough – not after 10,000 Mg of sodium— you know I’m going to be craving an XXL Pepsi to wash it down. 

(Thankfully, with the sugary stuff, I crave V-8 tomato juice and not smoothies or whatnot instead of something yet more sweet; I can only imagine the destruction and weight gain if I actually did have a sweet tooth!) 

I’ve never liked Gummies or sour skittles or whatever they’re called, but I have it on good authority that those are hard to stop snacking on, too. 

And while I myself can’t imagine even tasting something bitter, much less craving it, I’ve been told by people who favor such things that it works the same for them too. 

(No word on umami, feel free to let us know in the comments!)

I know “they” say that “if you feed a cold, you starve a fever,” but would you be surprised to hear that, even though I have been known to go on junk food binges in my time, when I have a cold, or rather, my nose is stopped up and I can’t smell anything, I don’t have quite as much of an appetite, even for snacking or binging. 

If I had to eat a plain rice cake or oatmeal without honey or whatever, I don’t think I would insist on eating two or three packets at the same time. 

I started thinking about this a while ago, about appetites and cravings, and I truly believe that (for me, anyway) it’s the four main flavors that taste buds recognize that spur on my binges. 

Because I’ve gone years at a time without tasting a single iota of sugar. (After taking prednisone for extended periods of time, I have lost over 100 pounds twice and an extra 50 pounds another time. All by restricting starch, carbohydrate, and sugar. As in one salad per week.) 

And leaving out something completely was much easier for me than the whole moderation thing. 

But perhaps my all or none rule is a form of weakness? Aka I could only control myself by staying away completely, so did that mean I was not exercising self control at all?

In the end, I guess it doesn’t really matter what led to my “boycott of carbs,” but it does make me wonder if staying away from what my tastebuds crave—until they lose the taste for my illicit (and non-appetizing) binges, anyway—could also apply to other addictions or obsessions, such as shopping, extreme endorphin exercising eliciting, “serial relationships,” spicy “entertainment,” gambling, substance use, etc. 

What say you, friends? Interested to learn what you think on this. 

sb