 One thing you hear from a lot of people when they start or are considering starting a low-carb, keto, carnivore lifestyle is giving up something or missing out on their previous food choices. But what are they missing out from really? Hey there, njrew22.com here with another low-carb, keto, carnivore discussion. And this week's topic is giving up the foods that you used to eat or missing out or the fear of not having the things you used to have. And this is a multifaceted topic because there are several reasons that people get upset about these things or concerned. And one of them is familiarity. You get stuck in a routine. A lot of the aspects of your life revolve around eating or they used to. Eating was entertainment. It was a dopamine hit. There was addiction to be concerned with mainly the sugar and what happens to your body when you eat something. And another is flavor. You may miss the flavors that came along with certain things, especially sweet flavors. Even things like ketchup, for instance, will be noticeably absent when you go to a low-carb, keto or carnivore diet or lifestyle plan. And another one that what we had a particular issue with was texture. Texture, mainly the crunch for us. It's the crunch of a tortilla chip or the chew that comes from a wheat-based bread. Like a pizza crust, for instance. A pizza crust dipped into a cup of a sugary marinara sauce was something that we thought we enjoyed. Now that's the key word there. We thought we enjoyed. In our mind, we did enjoy it. But what's really happening there is it was a chemical addiction and through repeated actions, like hundreds, if not thousands, tens of thousands of meals, times that you ate whatever food it was. I loved my Doritos and I love my Nachos and I love my pizza. And those things, to this day, I think back. And it really was some kind of addiction. I mean, living without it, it doesn't have to be taken as you're losing something. If anything, you're losing the raising your blood sugar, which in the long run, and is so much more beneficial than the short-term pleasure you had. And you have to get into that mindset to say, like, I'm missing those five minutes of pleasure, which always resulted in either pain afterward, you know, a stomach ache, digestive issues or weight gain. And then you had a long-term issue with, you know, lesser self-esteem and so on. But the crunch, and that's another thing that these low-carb people tend to do, and I think it's a mistake. And that's replacing that old feeling you got from the crunch or making low-carb breads, you know. I went down that road for a while where we tried making keto breads and, you know, all sorts of almond flours and rice flour. And they had all sorts of coconut flour, which it never tastes like bread. No matter, I mean, I think once out of a hundred experiments, I tried making a keto or low-carb pizza crust. Did it come out almost like pizza? And it was the amount of work involved to try and replicate pizza. And I can just take some fresh muts and some really low sugar tomato sauce. You don't even need tomato sauce. Just put some garlic powder on some melted cheese curds, for instance. And you close your eyes and you feel like you're eating the first bite of a slice of pizza if you really need to get it. And then just focus on the flavor at that point. You know, a nice melted cheese. I mean, God, you got to try cheese curds. They're not easily available everywhere, but cheese curds are great. But anyway, I lost my train of thought. But yeah, like the closest I ever came to replicating that crunch was making baked cheese, Parmesan cheese, or sometimes you can buy these blocks of cheese at shop right or anywhere, the cheapest cheese, get some like Colby Jack or Pepper Jack cheese, and you just put them in a muffin tin, a little quarter ounce square, and you bake them until they turn slightly brown, let them cool off. And they're, they're crunchy if you really miss it, but it's nothing will ever replace the crunch of a high carb food such as a corn chip or tortilla chip. Nothing, nothing can replace that crunch. And there's no point in even trying. Just give up the crunch and the benefit you get with the improved body composition and just energy levels and mental acuity is, you know, I had a brain fart before and I'm talking about mental acuity, but because I'm doing this all unscripted, by the way, this is all off the top of my head. I had a subject matter I started with and I just, I just ramble on. I have a basic idea of what I want to talk about. But yeah, just be happy that you're going to be in good health and don't worry about the food. And we're going to talk about this another time about the whole concept of eating as entertainment. You get programmed after decades of eating a certain way that food is some sort of pleasure dome event. Oh, we're going to sit down and eat and it's like, like, orgasmic in some kind of way. It doesn't have to be that way. And if you simplify your, your outlook, your framework of eating and just don't even think about it. I spend maybe five minutes eating a day like in the fridge right now. I made last night, I made three or four pounds of ground beef and pork sausage. I mashed it all together and made these massive 10 ounce hamburgers on the grill. They're, you know, two thirds beef and one third sausage. I think that's too much sausage. It tasted a little too much like sausage. I think I'll do like 80% beef, 20% sausage next time. I threw an egg in there too and some Parmesan cheese just to give it some, a different texture and taste. But you just eat it and you move on with your day. That is extremely important to change the way you eat. Don't make it into an event. Don't make it like a big, like, like, it's unnecessary. So and I told, told my friend who just started the carnivore and he's like, I want to go back to eating these things one day. And that's a understandable feeling to have in the very beginning because you have some sort of remorse. You miss the great things you used to eat, like a hoagie sandwich. I mean, those hoagie sandwiches still in my mind, you know, would let us tomato and onion and oil and vinegar and mayonnaise and all those cold cuts and, and you bite into that, that white bread with the bread is soaked with those oils. The oils are not bad for you. It's the bread that it's soaked in. And I told him that, you know, in time, you will no longer think about those things. And you may have to do some, I mean, I could tell all the people in the world that you're not going to miss it, but you have to go through the experience yourself for it to really, for it to stick. You know what I mean? In order for it to stick. Like I went through that phase where I miss it, let me try it. And then, like these days, even if I put something that's outside of the animal kingdom, like a vegetable or some kind of, even beans, or make me feel funny now, like the other night I had three cashews, three salted cashews. And that's apparently one of the keto, or I forget which group, it's okay to have a few nuts. It, I didn't feel good. And I know I'm not going to do it again. It wasn't that, you know, exciting for me to eat to want to do it again. So you stick to the basics and treat food like it's just fuel. And you'll be okay. But you're going to have to probably go through the steps to make it stick. Because I could tell you all you really need to know. But self-experience is important. So that's it. Don't miss the textures and the flavors too much. Just treat the food as your sustenance and move on with other more important things in your life and be happy that you're feeling great and everything has improved your skin, your hair, your attention span, everything else. So that's it for this week's low carb keto carnivore chat. And I'll see you next week with some other related topic. Have a nice week ahead.