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I think a lot of what you’re seeing— at least the parts that aren’t exaggerated for TV — are evidence of food addiction. Sugar, simple carbs, fat, and salt trigger the reward centers of your brain. And if you do so often enough, you’ll become at least mildly addicted. And the stuff they’re doing absolutely looks like any other addiction— lying, denial, manipulation. This can happen with things like screens, obviously drugs, alcohol. They don’t think they’re doing it too much, they’re in control, and they want other people to help them.
This is something I think needs to be addressed in general. I’m not convinced people are aware just how psychologically addicted you can get to food. And like any other addiction, if you’re not dealing both with the addiction and the psychological symptoms that got you addicted in the first place, it’s almost impossible to sustain the diet and lifestyle changes that you are making. You don’t get to 600 lbs and a cattle scale by having a normal relationship with food. I’d be surprised if there’s no underlying trauma that they’re treating with the dopamine rush that their food is providing.
Food addiction is very real.
I've gone cold turkey on things before. Alcohol, sex, masturbation, porn, internet, reddit, video games, etc. Of all of them going cold turkey on sugar was the absolute hardest thing I've ever done. And unlike quitting most of those things it remains difficult to continue.
I found with most addictions there there is a one to two week hump where your brain is resetting and still craving the thing you want. If you can make it through that one to two week hump you are usually fine. With sugar that hump was more like a month. Probably because my body can still produce it from other things I'm eating, so unless you are literally starving to death for two weeks you can't go full cold turkey on sugar.
The other unique difficulty I've had is what I call "food depression". Its usually when I start getting a little bit hungry, but not hungry enough to desire any of the foods I'm supposed to eat. Or it happens when I'm shopping and go down an isle with a bunch of forbidden foods. I get overcome with an extreme sense of sadness and loss. I've been on the verge of tears.
I always have to just wait it out. Its either real hunger, and I'll be hungry enough in an hour to eat the healthy thing. Or its just a craving and it will go away and I won't be hungry in an hour.
One oddly helpful thing is having young children. I can usually see in real-time how much hunger and food impacts their moods, and its made me far more aware of my own hunger and mood connections. Especially when that connection is negative and harmful.
The obvious difference between food and other addictions is that you cannot go cold turkey on all food. At least not without dying. The common recommendation for recovered addicts to never engage with the thing they got addicted to again, even in moderation, cannot apply to food.
It can’t apply to food if you’re talking about all food, but I think it can sort of apply to the kind of highly processed foods and high glycemic index foods that seem to be the worst. Maybe you can’t cut all carbs. Okay cool. But you can do something like Paleo or Keto or something similar. Like instead of a McDonald’s double cheeseburger, make the same thing at home using as close to natural ingredients as possible. Use lean beef, good quality cheese, a whole grain bun, etc. and really, I think that burger would probably taste better anyway. Substitute fries for baked potatoes. And on it would go.
God. It would probably be delicious, but it would take forever, and probably cost more. I’d be a lot healthier if I developed better habits around cooking and meal prep.
I mean I'm too tired to cook sometimes too, but when I am (and don't want to order pizza or something) a cheeseburger is exactly what I make:
This seems like way less work than going to McDonalds, and takes less than ten minutes? If you want fries with that you need to think ahead and plug the deep frier in ~15 minutes before starting the above and add "0. Throw fries in deep frier" to your steps. Cutting up a potato first is fast enough for me (and much healthier), but those frozen fries work fine if you want to optimize for speed.
(EDIT: I see downthread you are vegan (but still think cheeseburgers are delicious), so substitute one of those frozen patties for the beef stuff and don't use butter -- even easier, and the black-bean ones are pretty good (although almost but not quite entirely unlike a burger))
You can make the case with the burger but the deep frier part is not plausible. Cleaning up a deep frier and the fine mist of oil it will deposit all over your kitchen are a lot of work, there are substantial efficiencies of scale for deep frying.
Also keep in mind that getting in a comfy car and driving to McDonald's and back doesn't register as work to most people in the same way that cooking and especially cleaning dishes do.
Wat? It lives in the pantry and I bring it out if I want fries; if you're mostly doing potatoes the oil only needs changing from time to time. I deep clean it maybe annually.
The thing has a lid; there's no 'mist', fine or otherwise. Are you thinking of an industrial unit? You are correct that this would be a bad idea -- the $50 Walmart ones work fine for domestic quantities.
I hadn't considered leaving the oil in the pantry in the fryer between uses, if you use it often enough I guess that's workable.
I had also forgotten that deep fryers have lids which will trap most of the oily steam. So consider me convinced on that point.
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