The dreaded transitional period - Pleasure Trap Video Doug Lisle VSH Jan 2005

If having read up on plant based nutrition, you think it is the right way to go, your problems are only just beginning.

The first problem will be overcoming the old addictions. Then there will be the friends and family, who will use psychological pressure to bring you back into the fold - especially coming up to Christmas ("I bought this turkey specially for you"). Then you'll have to learn to cook new foods (or simply be lazy like me and buy a steamer). Then you'll find that everywhere you go, there are adverts for junk food, money off vouchers, and she store shelves will be lined with delicious fresh looking foods, all with very small ingredients labels. Don't be fooled.

A good book to get you through this period is "The Pleasure Trap", by Douglas Lisle and Alan Goldhamer. Doug Lisle also lectures on TCC502 "Diseases of Affluence" at eCornell. The lecture summary is as follows:
After completing this topic, you should be able to:
* Discuss how food cravings can both serve and mislead us
* Explain why poor choices may result when creatures confront novel environmental circumstances
* Identify the motivational triad and avoid products and services designed to trap it
* Outline how to break free from the pleasure trap

You can see a video version of this book and lecture here, but not in as much detail, and with some added jokes that do not appear in the Cornell lecture.

http://video.vsh.org/lisle.html

You'll notice that Doug Lisle mentions Water Fasting as a way to break the motivational triad. This was actually how I broke it, although I did not realise at the time I was doing this. I was fasting merely to lose weight. Yeah, I was over 100 pounds heavier on 15th January 2007, when I started fasting. I could hardly lift myself out of bed. I learned to fast at //www.curezone.org/forums/f.asp?f=335
here, with the help of chrisb1 and others from the Water Fasting forum. So if anyone would like to kick start this way of eating, go there and ask questions.

My view though is that if you can't fast, don't make too many failed attemts. Just start eating a plant based diet. In a later experiment, I actually found I can lose weight more quickly by eating a plant based diet, so choose which method is right for you, it doesn't really matter.

The important thing to know is you will have to go through a transitional period which will be unpleasant, after which all should be plain sailing. Tweet