> You could ask the same of someone addicted to smoking or cocaine or whatever.
That comparison with addiction to illicit drugs always perplexes me, because those drugs are clinically known to cause physical addiction to that substance, but that's not the case for (most?) food.
I do get the thing about it completely consuming your brain though (and being doubly painful if your stomach's in pain) even if it's a different phenomenon than drug addiction, so I'm not discounting that at all.
It sounds like this is something you've tried in the past. Have you given your body enough time to adjust when you've tried this? From what I know, when people start to fast (note I'm not suggesting you fast—just cut your portions > 50%), it's way more painful in the beginning (both physically and mentally) than it is, say, 2-3 weeks later. If you haven't tried this, do you think you could give yourself a chance and just tolerate it for (say) 3 weeks? I wonder if having a definite end date to look forward to might make it easier for yourself to convince your brain to tolerate some hunger?
Of course this has been tried. I think you are doing people a disservice (and with respect frankly it is quite insulting) by thinking they have not tried to use simple will power. People are on diets for years (potentially their entire adult and lives) - of fucking course people have tried giving their bodies time to adjust.
If it was just a matter of waiting a few weeks then we'd not have an obesity epidemic in the west, nor would the huge huge huge dieting industry exist.
Sorry, I didn't mean this to be insulting. The reason I was suggesting tolerating some of the pain to give your body time to adjust is that I've actually seen some people (obviously not everyone, just some subset) who don't do that, responding that they fear letting themselves feel hunger for a few days is to much of a health risk (because otherwise why would their body feel hunger/pain, etc.). You might believe everyone tries this but it's simply not the case. Of course lots of people really do try everything and still gain weight, but for every stage in the process there are some who don't give it a chance (and not all unreasonably either), and I've seen that for this one in particular, hence why I brought this one up.
That comparison with addiction to illicit drugs always perplexes me, because those drugs are clinically known to cause physical addiction to that substance, but that's not the case for (most?) food.
I do get the thing about it completely consuming your brain though (and being doubly painful if your stomach's in pain) even if it's a different phenomenon than drug addiction, so I'm not discounting that at all.
It sounds like this is something you've tried in the past. Have you given your body enough time to adjust when you've tried this? From what I know, when people start to fast (note I'm not suggesting you fast—just cut your portions > 50%), it's way more painful in the beginning (both physically and mentally) than it is, say, 2-3 weeks later. If you haven't tried this, do you think you could give yourself a chance and just tolerate it for (say) 3 weeks? I wonder if having a definite end date to look forward to might make it easier for yourself to convince your brain to tolerate some hunger?