Comment by vonneumannstan
3 days ago
I think this is more akin to literally starving yourself so that a single bit of spinach tastes great. It turns out you can in fact eat a candy bar and have pizza and not become obese or otherwise damage your health. It's not one or the other and OP might need some kind of professional help to mediate their moods...
Like this is clearly not healthy.
What about restricting yourself is not healthy?
When I was a kid, I'd eat Trix cereal. I enjoyed it. Now - I find it sort of gross. It's too sweet. You can reach that same point with cake or pizza or a candy bar, etc. - in that, those foods become sort of gross. Foods like spinach become more satisfying. Not only that, but that satisfaction may yield a higher reward than you ever could with Trix cereal. But you'd never reach that higher level of satisfaction as long as you're eating Trix cereal every day.
I wouldn't overthink it, or take it to extremes just to find a strawman. A charitable reading of my comment shows we agree. I talked about indulgences displacing healthier options.
More specifically, when TFA talks about difficulty writing an email vs playing hours of video games, I thought it was worth mentioning that 2 hrs of factorio 3 or 4 nights a week might actually dampen the excitement of work a little by providing a perfectly tailored experience designed to engage the part of your brain that your employer would pay your for.
The analogy isn't about "hunger is the best seasoning" (although isn't that an apt colloquialism !), the analogy is insulin resistance is something like "dopamine resistance" both take consistent large over indulgences or poor decisions (however socially acceptable!) to cause a runaway effect which degrades "health".
Hope that's clearer. It's about establishing healthy habits not starving oneself.
> It turns out you can in fact eat a candy bar and have pizza and not become obese
That is extremely dependent on an individual's metabolism. When I was young I had hyperthyroidism and could not keep enough weight on. I could, and needed to, consume a huge amount of calories without gaining a pound. Now, my thyroid's burnt out, and my sleep is terrible, and it feels like I gain wait from breathing in air.
It's quite difficult for some people to allow themselves a candy bar without sliding down a slippery slope. I'm formerly obese, I lost 100 lbs, and I know when I relax my standards even for a few days, it can spiral.
Self-discipline looks different for everyone. I don't think it's necessarily unhealthy.