This is exactly me with sweets. Right now I’ve gone 7 months without having it but everyday I think about what I’ll eat to reward myself. I keep pushing it off because I feel like if I eat just one sweet it’ll all be over for me. I won’t be able to stop. Abstinence is easier in the end.
Right on right on right on!!! It took me years and years to not just understand this but to admit to it. SOOOO glad I did. I can’t use anything in moderation. I know this about myself. So, I use nothing.
Addict here. 1st it was sugar, then alcohol, pills, "natural " products like kava & kratom. Finally breaking free! Thanks Chef AJ. Learning ao much from you! So thankful I found plant based eating. No more problems ❤
Seriously this is a perfect video.... it doesnt take much to be an addict or have a poor habit..... we think we know something and thenwe ALLOW someone to shed a different light or new way to see by. Please keep them coming
Chef AJ just made me realize that I am Addicted to Cheese. I eat too much of it, almost everyday. Lunchtime or as a PM snack with crackers. All addictions commence as Habits, good and bad. I have an "additive personality" always did. I'm a 71 YO retired man who has suffered and continues to suffer with anxiety disorders. Even today, If you give me a roll of LifeSavers for instance, I don't take one or two, I consume the entire roll within minutes, popping one as soon as I finish the other! Is it the Sugar { although I do the same with Breathsavers which are sugar free)? Is it the desire / need to suck on a mint (Oral Fixation they call it)? I have to make a specific point to limit my intake. I started the same "addiction" to Tic Tacs. Started to have them in my car some years ago, and then found myself consuming Tic Tacs within a few minutes of smoking a cigarette (the worst Addiction known to Mankind) , then lighting another cigarette 20 minutes later - then round and round until I arrived at my destination (work or Home). I have to agree with this assessment that There is No Moderation with Addicts. That statement violates the Old Adage ....." Everything In Moderation". It is a complicated topioc for sure.
What sort of cheese are you eating? Buy the good stuff like aged Gouda or raw milk Roquefort so you're getting all your vit k2 which will help your vascular health. Food is medicine..
I’m a sober alcoholic and agree with this to a point. But cheese? Who is eating cheese to the point where they are blacked out, throwing up, forgetting what they said or did and ruining their life and the lives of those around them?
If you eat a "trigger" food, it will pull you off your healthy eating. I'm addicted to ice cream and EVERY TIME I have it for a "cheat meal", it ruins all of my hard work and progress. And it turns into a binge of eating EVERYTHING 😅😅
You are speaking the truth. I grew up in NYC and when my peers were smoking weed back in the 60s and 70s, I said the same thing and they swore it wasn't addicitve, they could stop at anytime and on and on. Over the years they went on to smoking more and harder drugs. Many died (albeit other things) but none ever smoked less weed. Fast forward to 2024, for those that are still standing, if they can breath I don't see the great wonders weed did for them and they smoked the real deal back then, not this synthetic crap they do today.
Thanks, chef Aj my addiction is cheese pizza so I have to learn not to have it at all if I have a pizza slice . I will make my own pizza and sauces with ingredients from your book.
The cheese addiction thing is based on a study where they injected cheese into the brains of rats. So it’s not the same as a drug that crosses the blood brain barrier. Food doesn’t often do that. Food addiction is real but it’s more about the way food impacts your system and helps regulate and numb emotions, so that’s what you become addicted to.
I recently discovered that i cannot stick to caloric limit in the diet. Eating 1700/1800 kcal a day is a punishment for me. So i discovered that i can fast for a whole day (36 h, not 24), and the next day enjoy my food freely, it gives me an average of lower calories still keeping the pleasure of eating. Moderation indeed is not for everyone
Abstinence is way easier for me. I could have 100 gram bar of dark super chocolate and I still eat half of the bar before ei decide to stop and then finish the whole bar anyway and then I'm lucky it was only a 100 grams of 75%dark chocolate. Ssme goes for cheese, I'll take a piece and the salt makes me want more. Not having thes products at home also don't make me run to the supermarket for it so there is something to abstinence that helps me and doesn't make my heart grow fonder for those foods lol.
Saints and Catholicism...saving the Earth from its self since Zero Anno Domini. A tamed and educated Earth is a gift to all mankind. Thank you Saint Augustine. Thank you my Jesus.
Maybe that is true for addicts and their source of addiction, but not for everyone. Moderation in everything is the key to a healthy, balanced life and should never be discredited, but encouraged.
I don’t agree. I believe that it’s quite possible to integrate the dismembered physical parts of ourselves (which drive addictive programming) into our conscious awareness in order to have volition in our choices. Important point: as addiction is defined as “something that we repeatedly engage in, despite knowing the negative consequences.” Someone who is addicted via an eating disorder, or codependency- it’s not possible to survive life by abstaining from food, or relationships for that matter.
Chef AJ suggests abstaining from processed foods, the unhealthy stuff. She doesn’t suggest that people abstain from food entirely. People don’t become addicted to healthy foods, your body tells you to stop eating those when you have had enough. It’s the unhealthy foods that people become addicted to and overeat. I think it would be the same with relationships. We need healthy relationships. But we would have a much better life if we abstain from unhealthy relationships. 😊
Mmmm I beg to differ regarding the nature of addiction, for example: orthorexia (obsession with food rules). I don’t believe that addiction is dichotomous to solely any one thing isolatable in and of itself. Similarly, any relationship could become addictive in a codependent tendency whereby one’s needs continually aren’t self-met, so that person seeks completion dependent upon someone else. It’s the root of addiction that’s where deep healing has an ask: and when it no longer needs to be filled as a hungry ghost, then nothing outside of the person has power over them.
@@MelanieSakowski My experiences and observations of addiction haven’t been about ‘a hungry ghost’ kind of need. Instead it has been about dopamine levels, and the desire for higher dopamine levels. Those kinds of addictions can be about a literal single thing. Examples: meth, gambling, pornography, processed foods, a person you are in an unhealthy relationship, etc. Even orthorexia can be broken down into healthy rules about eating and unhealthy rules about eating. Not all rules about eating are bad, unhealthy, or addictive. Not every rule about what you should or shouldn’t eat messes with your dopamine levels. When your rules about eating do cause problems with your dopamine levels, well then those eating rules can become an addiction.
It's better to learn moderation. Saying it never works is not only untrue, but is an excuse. You do not have to remain "an addict." Self-control is a thing.
@@sheri8048 Both. I know from experience that a person can be just as determined to practice moderation as abstinence. And the truth is that with some things moderation is the healthier choice. What a lie that moderation never works!
@@l-train7876 If you're going to quote someone when you are representing yourself as an authority on a subject matter and co-opting it into your argument, you have to at least know something about the person you are quoting and understand whether there is context to it or not. Otherwise it's a cheap soundbite and it undermines your authority, right? That's actually how it works in the real world and has done for centuries. What if she'd said "To quote Buddha from the 18th century?" It's that degree of error. And by the way, an opinion is an opinion, if you don't like it, answer it with substance, not by bleeting.
That is fax I have to cohere to a strict whole 30 diet in order to maintang a reasonable quality of life because I have so many physical. Issues that are unexplained by doctors all. I know is that I do better when I stay strictly to the whole 30 and when I deviate. I suffer hard even if it's just a little bit.
It’s not true that it never works. It’s just that it only does less than 1% of the time. Everyone wants to think they’re in that fraction of a percent who can pull it off. It’s better just to assume you’re not.
As someone who used to drink significant amounts of alcohol everyday and now just occasionally drinks socially, I would say this is not true. Moderation is not easy, and abstinence is probably easier, but moderation is definitely not impossible.
Funny, I think abstinence is so fraught given its religious context. It’s often used to suppress non-marital sex so people have a negative association to it because of how it’s been weaponized by the Christian morality police. But in some contexts, is it just true? And it’s okay if it’s true or best to abstain.
Why is quitting UA-cam harder for me than quitting a five year weed dependency smoking all day or even quitting nicotine which is supposedly the hardest thing to quit
I know that, its a shit to have a addiction, big shit for that matter.. Now i just want to trye the plant based vegan lifestyle, but its even harder, were to start? Please just give me a easy first week recepies..
There’s nothing like a slice of 12 year aged Wisconsin cheddar. It really lights up the brain on a good positive way, not a troublesome, addictive way.
This cannot be true. What of those addicted to food? They will eventually learn moderation or die. It can be done, but we’ll do anything to never have master self control and discipline. We’ll even claim “IT CANNOT BE DONE.”
You don't sound like you understand. But what does it matter to you if it works for some other people? Why do you care if some people aren't eating cheese?😂😂
Not to be picky about what was said but….I have celiac and I’d rather die than ever go back to Paris. To me -Paris is all about the architecture and most importantly food. Even their eggs are somehow better, but eggs with the cheese?!. I’d rather never see a gorgeous building again than have to be around the street vendors who sell crepes and every other store selling bread that you tastes like heaven on earth. I know it’s not the point of this video. Sometimes I don’t shut my mouth! Lol! Except for eating food I want to🙁
As a guy addicted to UA-cam shorts, I agree.
😂😂😂😂me 2
F me too
😂
too funny.
"You can’t have excuses and results at the same time." So true! Love Chef AJ
Wisdom
bit of a hyperbole
Abstinence is easier than perfect moderation. Wow. That is so true.
Yup.
Profound huh ❤
🎉 You can’t have both excuses & results at the same time. 🎉
This is exactly me with sweets. Right now I’ve gone 7 months without having it but everyday I think about what I’ll eat to reward myself. I keep pushing it off because I feel like if I eat just one sweet it’ll all be over for me. I won’t be able to stop. Abstinence is easier in the end.
If addicts could moderate they wouldn't be addicts
That's not true, that's not how it works at all
Exactly.
Preach it Chef AJ!! 🙌
I gradually moderated my alcohol use with longer and longer fasts until I eventually gave it up altogether. Been sober like 7 years i think.
Awesome!!🎉🎉🎉
My alcoholic college friend puts ice in his beer & thinks he's drinking now in moderation! Lmao
She is so modest in her makeup. She is highly intelligent and down to earth. I enjoy her so much.
I can enjoy what she says, yet her eyebrows have me disagreeing with you regarding her makeup.
Chef AJ has such WISDOM!❤
Right on right on right on!!! It took me years and years to not just understand this but to admit to it. SOOOO glad I did. I can’t use anything in moderation. I know this about myself. So, I use nothing.
CJ is so wise and wonderful.
One drink is too many and a thousand is not enough.
So true. Also, Saint Augustine was born in the year 354!
Addict here.
1st it was sugar, then alcohol, pills, "natural " products like kava & kratom.
Finally breaking free!
Thanks Chef AJ.
Learning ao much from you!
So thankful I found plant based eating. No more problems ❤
Me trying to abstain from
Ice cream and having a whole pint while watching this short 😅
Smiles....😂...
You are stronger than me, because I can't focus on what is being said for thinking about the ice cream.
If people followed the process involved in cheese making they would 100% never eat it. It is not only inherently cruel, but also disgusting.
Where is your cheese made because here in Scotland Cheese process is neither disgusting or cruel
no its not. but ok, I live in fact in France, that's real cheese here.
I love this woman❤
Moderation just makes you a permanent addict.
ABSOLUTE TRUTH!!!
I needed to hear this today ❤❤❤
Chef AJ is the best in her class
Seriously this is a perfect video.... it doesnt take much to be an addict or have a poor habit..... we think we know something and thenwe ALLOW someone to shed a different light or new way to see by. Please keep them coming
Chef AJ just made me realize that I am Addicted to Cheese. I eat too much of it, almost everyday. Lunchtime or as a PM snack with crackers. All addictions commence as Habits, good and bad. I have an "additive personality" always did. I'm a 71 YO retired man who has suffered and continues to suffer with anxiety disorders. Even today, If you give me a roll of LifeSavers for instance, I don't take one or two, I consume the entire roll within minutes, popping one as soon as I finish the other! Is it the Sugar { although I do the same with Breathsavers which are sugar free)? Is it the desire / need to suck on a mint (Oral Fixation they call it)? I have to make a specific point to limit my intake. I started the same "addiction" to Tic Tacs. Started to have them in my car some years ago, and then found myself consuming Tic Tacs within a few minutes of smoking a cigarette (the worst Addiction known to Mankind) , then lighting another cigarette 20 minutes later - then round and round until I arrived at my destination (work or Home).
I have to agree with this assessment that There is No Moderation with Addicts. That statement violates the Old Adage ....." Everything In Moderation". It is a complicated topioc for sure.
What sort of cheese are you eating? Buy the good stuff like aged Gouda or raw milk Roquefort so you're getting all your vit k2 which will help your vascular health. Food is medicine..
And St. Augustine was a scoundrel! So he knew what he was talking about - he’s the one who said “Lord make me pure, but not yet”
Thanks that is all I needed to know!!!!
Abstinence is your friend. Just don't pick it up... do whatever it takes to not take that first bite.
Write that book Chef AJ!!!!
Excellent points!
A cashier this afternoon could read me like a book
I’m a sober alcoholic and agree with this to a point. But cheese? Who is eating cheese to the point where they are blacked out, throwing up, forgetting what they said or did and ruining their life and the lives of those around them?
If you eat a "trigger" food, it will pull you off your healthy eating. I'm addicted to ice cream and EVERY TIME I have it for a "cheat meal", it ruins all of my hard work and progress. And it turns into a binge of eating EVERYTHING 😅😅
@@kimik01889 AND FEELING EMOTIONALLY AWFUL FOR DAYS AFTERWARDS.
Check out your local cheese anonymous meetings
Me!
That excuse is funny as hell.. 😂😂😂😂. I will start using it. 😂😂😂
Every weed user is hardcore addicted it blows my mind that they still can’t admit it.
Sure buddy.
You are speaking the truth. I grew up in NYC and when my peers were smoking weed back in the 60s and 70s, I said the same thing and they swore it wasn't addicitve, they could stop at anytime and on and on. Over the years they went on to smoking more and harder drugs. Many died (albeit other things) but none ever smoked less weed. Fast forward to 2024, for those that are still standing, if they can breath I don't see the great wonders weed did for them and they smoked the real deal back then, not this synthetic crap they do today.
Moderation has never worked for me either...
It is absolutley true for me about alcohol.
This is definitely 💯 true.
It’s incredible to hear somebody tell the truth this day and age….
Thanks, chef Aj my addiction is cheese pizza so I have to learn not to have it at all if I have a pizza slice . I will make my own pizza and sauces with ingredients from your book.
Thank you!!!
That's a quote from Allen Carrs Easy way. She just changed the word cigarettes for cheese
Love it. I'm an addict, I so get it.
The cheese addiction thing is based on a study where they injected cheese into the brains of rats. So it’s not the same as a drug that crosses the blood brain barrier. Food doesn’t often do that. Food addiction is real but it’s more about the way food impacts your system and helps regulate and numb emotions, so that’s what you become addicted to.
St. Augustine 364AD to 430AD-so older than dirt!
That’s why I ate a whole pizza on my last day before truly going vegan 😂
I recently discovered that i cannot stick to caloric limit in the diet. Eating 1700/1800 kcal a day is a punishment for me. So i discovered that i can fast for a whole day (36 h, not 24), and the next day enjoy my food freely, it gives me an average of lower calories still keeping the pleasure of eating. Moderation indeed is not for everyone
So true for me. I can not do moderation on carbs. Or all, or nothing.
Fact !!
That is why I feel sorry for food addicts
"Abstinence is better than 'perfect moderation'."
St. Augustine
Because "perfect moderation" is impossible to define.
Abstinence is way easier for me. I could have 100 gram bar of dark super chocolate and I still eat half of the bar before ei decide to stop and then finish the whole bar anyway and then I'm lucky it was only a 100 grams of 75%dark chocolate.
Ssme goes for cheese, I'll take a piece and the salt makes me want more. Not having thes products at home also don't make me run to the supermarket for it so there is something to abstinence that helps me and doesn't make my heart grow fonder for those foods lol.
I'm exactly the same. Chocolate and cheese are my addictions
What if you’re addicted to food? Do you have any choice but moderation?
Saints and Catholicism...saving the Earth from its self since Zero Anno Domini. A tamed and educated Earth is a gift to all mankind. Thank you Saint Augustine. Thank you my Jesus.
as a person who addicted by sugar, I agree
St Augustine lived around AD 400.
Maybe that is true for addicts and their source of addiction, but not for everyone. Moderation in everything is the key to a healthy, balanced life and should never be discredited, but encouraged.
Moderation with certain foods is too much of a struggle for me. Abstinence is easier, I don''t have to think about it because it's already decided.
religions always taught us that removing oneself from temptation is more effective than resisting temptation.
But I guess we dont need religion now.
True
Saint Augustine lived in the 4th century
Absolutely. 👏
St Augustine was in the 4th century...
I don’t agree. I believe that it’s quite possible to integrate the dismembered physical parts of ourselves (which drive addictive programming) into our conscious awareness in order to have volition in our choices.
Important point: as addiction is defined as “something that we repeatedly engage in, despite knowing the negative consequences.”
Someone who is addicted via an eating disorder, or codependency- it’s not possible to survive life by abstaining from food, or relationships for that matter.
This is a great point!
Chef AJ suggests abstaining from processed foods, the unhealthy stuff. She doesn’t suggest that people abstain from food entirely. People don’t become addicted to healthy foods, your body tells you to stop eating those when you have had enough. It’s the unhealthy foods that people become addicted to and overeat.
I think it would be the same with relationships. We need healthy relationships. But we would have a much better life if we abstain from unhealthy relationships. 😊
Mmmm I beg to differ regarding the nature of addiction, for example: orthorexia (obsession with food rules).
I don’t believe that addiction is dichotomous to solely any one thing isolatable in and of itself.
Similarly, any relationship could become addictive in a codependent tendency whereby one’s needs continually aren’t self-met, so that person seeks completion dependent upon someone else.
It’s the root of addiction that’s where deep healing has an ask: and when it no longer needs to be filled as a hungry ghost, then nothing outside of the person has power over them.
@@MelanieSakowski My experiences and observations of addiction haven’t been about ‘a hungry ghost’ kind of need. Instead it has been about dopamine levels, and the desire for higher dopamine levels. Those kinds of addictions can be about a literal single thing. Examples: meth, gambling, pornography, processed foods, a person you are in an unhealthy relationship, etc.
Even orthorexia can be broken down into healthy rules about eating and unhealthy rules about eating. Not all rules about eating are bad, unhealthy, or addictive. Not every rule about what you should or shouldn’t eat messes with your dopamine levels. When your rules about eating do cause problems with your dopamine levels, well then those eating rules can become an addiction.
Someone seems to be addicted to verbosity 😒
It goes for you and all that what you do and everyone else. Oh dear you
It's better to learn moderation. Saying it never works is not only untrue, but is an excuse. You do not have to remain "an addict." Self-control is a thing.
Are you an experienced addict or just sharing your wise advice?
@@sheri8048 Both. I know from experience that a person can be just as determined to practice moderation as abstinence. And the truth is that with some things moderation is the healthier choice. What a lie that moderation never works!
Amen!
Amen❤
Cool! I didn’t know Chef AJ was on a podcast
Great quote, not sure it was St. Augustine, but he was from the 3rd Century...
St. Augustine of Hippo lived from 354-420 AD, not the 16th or 17th Centuries.
okay, an error, I still am a food addict that can't do moderation.
So true
Lmao Augustine was 4th century. I mean, you can be off a bit, but to be way over a thousand years out is....lol....
I don’t think the year or the century was the point. St. Augustine’s words she referred to still ring true throughout the ages.
I'm already happy that a quote from a saint is being used to illustrate a point. You can't expect everyone to know the things we know.
Oh god, go away.
The quote still hit me though
@@l-train7876 If you're going to quote someone when you are representing yourself as an authority on a subject matter and co-opting it into your argument, you have to at least know something about the person you are quoting and understand whether there is context to it or not. Otherwise it's a cheap soundbite and it undermines your authority, right? That's actually how it works in the real world and has done for centuries. What if she'd said "To quote Buddha from the 18th century?" It's that degree of error. And by the way, an opinion is an opinion, if you don't like it, answer it with substance, not by bleeting.
St Augustine is from 4th century.
That is fax I have to cohere to a strict whole 30 diet in order to maintang a reasonable quality of life because I have so many physical. Issues that are unexplained by doctors all. I know is that I do better when I stay strictly to the whole 30 and when I deviate. I suffer hard even if it's just a little bit.
Cheese? Yes!!
Dude, I love cheese so much. Lol
Everyone does that's the whole point. 😂
she says this as i slice my 2nd piece of unexpected cheddar cheese lol 😂
Hey. Isn't that the lady that was on Ceaser Millan's program. Now she's a therapist?
Have the cheese when you go to France 🤷🏻♀️
If you aren't going there anyway, what's the harm lol
It’s not true that it never works. It’s just that it only does less than 1% of the time. Everyone wants to think they’re in that fraction of a percent who can pull it off. It’s better just to assume you’re not.
What about a smartphone addiction? I am really struggling.
Smartphone Addiction is a THING ! Put it down.
so it gets just extra hard if people are addicted to things that can not be stopped entirely. food, work, cleaning....
4th century.
Watch out for that cheese 🧀
im checking to cheese rehab today
My girl ❤
St Augustine died in the year 430.
noone cares
At augustine was correct he starved in addiction it dies
As someone who used to drink significant amounts of alcohol everyday and now just occasionally drinks socially, I would say this is not true. Moderation is not easy, and abstinence is probably easier, but moderation is definitely not impossible.
she said perfect moderation is harder
Understood
Funny, I think abstinence is so fraught given its religious context. It’s often used to suppress non-marital sex so people have a negative association to it because of how it’s been weaponized by the Christian morality police. But in some contexts, is it just true? And it’s okay if it’s true or best to abstain.
Addict from addicts. Too until age 40 to finally get it.
I love cheese. I feel like I have my brie consumption under control, there were times, I did not!
My struggle is cheese. Now I know why. And I don't need to go to France...I leave here.🇨🇵
What episode is this please?
Why is quitting UA-cam harder for me than quitting a five year weed dependency smoking all day or even quitting nicotine which is supposedly the hardest thing to quit
I know that, its a shit to have a addiction, big shit for that matter.. Now i just want to trye the plant based vegan lifestyle, but its even harder, were to start? Please just give me a easy first week recepies..
Food addicts as well.
This is why being addicted to food fucking sucks.
Abstinence does not really work if you still want to live.
There’s nothing like a slice of 12 year aged Wisconsin cheddar. It really lights up the brain on a good positive way, not a troublesome, addictive way.
Saint Augustine was a Roman citizen lol. 17th century come on man
no one care, he did enough destruction with the religion.
Chef AJ is ageing fast she needs to be carnivore ❤
It's way easier to be abstinent than have a moderate amount of sex
This cannot be true. What of those addicted to food? They will eventually learn moderation or die. It can be done, but we’ll do anything to never have master self control and discipline. We’ll even claim “IT CANNOT BE DONE.”
You don't sound like you understand. But what does it matter to you if it works for some other people? Why do you care if some people aren't eating cheese?😂😂
Not to be picky about what was said but….I have celiac and I’d rather die than ever go back to Paris. To me -Paris is all about the architecture and most importantly food. Even their eggs are somehow better, but eggs with the cheese?!. I’d rather never see a gorgeous building again than have to be around the street vendors who sell crepes and every other store selling bread that you tastes like heaven on earth. I know it’s not the point of this video. Sometimes I don’t shut my mouth! Lol! Except for eating food I want to🙁