What Would Happen If You Only Ever Ate Pizza?
What Eating Only Pizza for 7 Days Can Teach Us
Friends of mine have created what they dub the annual, “pizza cleanse.” The rules of the pizza cleanse are simple and straightforward, one must only eat pizza for every meal for seven days.
The definition of habituation is, “a form of non-associative learning in which an innate response to a stimulus decreases after repeated or prolonged presentations of that stimulus.”
Habituation and the pizza cleanse are two cogs in the same wheel. Think about if you’ve been previously restricting pizza - or have never allowed yourself to truly enjoy pizza regularly.
This could mean you only allow yourself pizza on the most special of occasions, or else you have to “earn it” by over-exercising. Chances are when you do finally eat pizza, you’re going to eat past comfortable fullness because who knows when the next special occasion to eat it may be.
More Pizza?
When the pizza cleanse finishes, I’ll bet you can guess what my friends don’t want to eat. Yep! They certainly don’t want pizza. From the conversations we’ve had post cleanse, they’re typically craving something more nourishing and/or nutrient dense. This same principle is the same with food restriction in your everyday life. The longer you restrict yourself from indulging in your day-to-day food cravings, the longer those cravings will have power over you.
It’s Not Exposure Therapy
Habituation is not exposure therapy, but it would be easy to get them mixed up. Habituation is letting yourself eat various foods routinely so that you no longer feel an intensity around them. If you drop the food rules and let yourself enjoy ice cream during the week (often), chances are in a few weeks you’ll be able to discern whether or not you’re still truly hungry for it.
Some weeks you may eat ice cream after dinner every night. Others? Not even a spoonful. That’s what habituation aims to do, make food neutral. It’s important note however that eating it once doesn’t mean you’ve done the work. Facing your fears requires diligence until you no longer feel power of that of which frightens you. So go into that pint of ice cream with bravado, and remember that you have unconditional permission to do so.
Why The Pizza Cleanse Works
To me, the pizza cleanse is over the top. But it was founded on this principle that food is also meant to be fun. And it was founded on a playful irony grounding what it means to “cleanse” your body. In this case though, I like the cleanse as a means of purging the normal rules around a diet. The most amazing part of this whole cleanse is that at the end of it, my friends are still my friends - normal human beings with normal (albeit pizza averse) appetites who go on about their lives.
And should someone offer them pizza the next day? They’ll probably say yes! Because it’s delicious.
Are you looking to repair your own relationship to food? Drop me a line in the form below, I’d love the opportunity to work together.
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