Sugar
In the same vein, salt.
Try to stay under the daily recommended amount of 2500mg of sodium and see how limited your food options are.
Everything is loaded with salt now. Especially fast food. For example, my previous go-to meal at Zaxby’s (the boneless wings and things plate) is over 4000mg of sodium for one meal. Add on a 1300mg sausage, egg, and cheese mcgriddle and a fried rice with soy sauce for dinner and I had several days worth of sodium without totally blowing my calorie budget.
You’re not supposed to eat any of those things on any regular basis. Those are def cheat meals to eat sparingly when you’ve planned to go a little crazy with your diet
Fried rice is not a cheat meal and a lot of people in the world eat it daily.
That isn’t addiction though, that’s lack of options. If you cut out sugar or sodium from your diet you probably aren’t going to go through withdrawal. Unless you’re meaning more of a psychological addiction.
That’s a fair point. But there is definitely a “tolerance” you build up and can be reset. After being on a low sodium diet, anything like what I mentioned before is almost inedibly salty.
I’m a filthy vegan and former tobacco smoker that doesn’t indulge in sweets. I’m scared to actually calculate my salt intake as I over season everything I eat. For a while I thought I was being healthy not using table salt on anything, until I realized hot sauce and tamari are essentially liquid sodium.
Yep. My favorite hot sauce has 1200mg of sodium per two tablespoons… And I would drench my food in that shit.
Same with soy sauce. Each of those little packets you get from your favorite Chinese place is probably at least 300mg of sodium.
Yeah I got through a… whatever, a giant jug of Frank’s hot sauce, I guess half a gallon. Every time I used it I’d visibly bloat up from the sodium, but was probably using a quarter cup minimum every time.
Tried my best to use USA measurements for American people’s benefit. The jug was >2 litres and we’re talking 60ml a pop, absolute minimum. Apparently that’s five grams of salt, nearly 2000mg sodium. Wow.
You can’t even buy soup in the grocery store because it’s all 33% sodium
Canned soup is especially bad about sodium, and they’re sneaky about it. They’ll say that each can has two servings and each serving is like 800mg of sodium.
2500mg is also just not a lot of sodium. 2000 calories is also a recommended daily amount but it’s far too low for a lot of people.
2000 Cal is probably within 30% of what most people should have daily. But your typical American food is going to be 100-200% higher than the daily recommended amount. A Panera Bread French Onion soup in a bread bowl is literally 90% of the daily sodium, but not even half of the daily calories. Remove the bread bowl and it’s still more than 1200mg of sodium for less than 400 calories.
The biggest thing I look at now when picking out meals is the sodium to calorie ratio. Anything over 1.2 is probably not good.
Reminds me of my favorite food, the KFC Double Down. That bad boy had so much sodium they had to take it off the permanent menu (much to my salt-loving dismay) due to the number of warnings about its salt and fat content.
Still pissed that my local KFC shut down and that I missed the month that it was brought back for (only saw the commercial for it 3 days before it ended when the nearest KFC was like an hour or so away).
Spice
Caffeine, people think they aren’t addicted to caffeine and can stop any time but watch them be miserable and go right back when they try. And in the same vein adderall for those college kids who are cramming before tests
If I go 2 days without coffee, my head starts to kill me. Definitely an addiction.
I threw up on an international flight because I didn’t have caffeine
I have adhd. Caffeine I definitely feel the symptoms when I stop. My adhd drug (Focalin, not aderall) I just feel the ADHD symptoms more but no headaches and such.
It actually makes you feel like you have the flu for about 3 days to a week.
Personally I just had the worst headache for multiple weeks.
I tried cutting it out for a while to see if it was causing some anxiety (it wasn’t, it was just the world and lockdowns) but went from 2-3 large cups of chemex a day to 0 for about 8 weeks and it was frankly…. fine? I didn’t even get headaches. I count myself lucky, esp so since I am back to drinking coffee haha
Oh man. I get to experience all the addict tropes with caffeine. Slurping spilled coffee from the kitchen counter (less hygienic than vodka), panic-crying when were out of beans, snarling at my love ones until they take me to Peets or Starbucks.
Every once in a while (like every 18 months) I’ll taper back down to sobriety (16 oz a day for two days, then 8 ozs then 4 or zero) and wow there’s a level of giving zero fucks even below the iceberg. Maybe it’s negative fucks or microfractional fuck-giving. But when I’m drying out, no goth, no cynic, no edge lord can stand a chance matching the degree of fuck non-giving I manage.
I legitimately thought I was coming down with a cold when I accidentally didn’t get any caffeine for a day, lol
Algorithmic Addiction from Social Media consumption. An analogy would be Caffeine addiction from coffee consumption.
Most people who use smartphones are addicts and are far from being aware of it.
Yeah I’m feeling that. I thought I had kicked up, but Lemmy is getting too good lately…
And Lemmy isn’t even intentionally employing dark patterns to drive up my engagement.
I don’t know if you are using the web UI or an app, but I found that if you use a mobile app it gets even more addictive. I had to delete Connect from my phone because it made it easier to just sit and scroll. Now I’m doing that on the web anyway, argh…
Internet and screens in general.
Social media, here we all are lmaoooo
I’ve always referred to Reddit and other forum type sites as “anti-social media”.
Nobody’s here to gain clout. Nobody’s here to get more followers. Nobody’s here to try and be famous.
We’re here because it’s anonymous (if you want it to be), and because it’s fundamentally different from mainstream social networking sites.
Definitely agree with you on how Reddit and forums are different, but they can still be pretty addictive. I just love reading discussions about stuff, and it really scratches an itch that is not satisfied by social media that is centered around personalities. I hate all the self promotion on sites like Twitter and Instagram anyway, as despite there being a lot of cool stuff, there are so many “influencers” and grifters out there it’s honestly a massive turnoff to use the sites.
Add in that you can just check how the algorithm that sorts your posts works. Social media like Facebook have always felt like 100% ads with how content is sorted. If not for anotherproduct, an ad for Facebook itself.
It’s different, in my opinion. You’re not trying to expose yourself, you’re not gonna change yourself so the others can think you’re something you’re not.
Work. Just because society deems it acceptable doesn’t mean it’s healthy.
It’s not deemed acceptable, it’s deemed absolutely necessary. Hard to fight it most times.
Work Yes. But as a former workaholic there is that time where you do it like an addict. You sacrifice health, relationships, and joy. It winds up consuming you like any other addiction.
Right. I don’t work because I’m addicted to it lmao
Social media consumption as a whole.
Porn
Surprised I had to scroll dowm this far to see “porn”, should be the top one lol
An interesting book can put me in a similar situations to drug addiction. My wife had to put her foot down on my reading issues, and now I avoid books unless necessary. People are always confused when I explain it to them.
If you’re reading to the exclusion of all other things that’s unhealthy but the idea you stopped reading is equally unhealthy. It would be better to continue reading with boundaries than to give up the betterment that reading brings.
You don’t understand. There is no setting boundaries. It is a compulsion that can’t be stopped.
Codependency. It’s okay to not be in a relationship.
Music.
Some people won’t drive without it. Or can’t study, etc.
Obviously not a harmful addiction, or even undesirable in most cases - but generally unacknowledged.
I like most music, but it doesn’t occur to me to go out of my way to play it for myself.
Omg finally someone like me. I only Listen to music when it’s already playing or someone gives me an earworm or something like that. But usually i just don’t open spotify unprompted.
Following sports. Being a die hard sports fan is time consuming and stressful. Obviously betting on sports is an addiction people talk about now, but even tipping comps and fantasy football type leagues are things that rob you of time and energy.
Air. You don’t actually need it.
It’s all big air propaganda
Phone and to some extent, gadgets in general.
masturbating
(…) is frequent in both sexes and at any age. Various medical and psychological benefits have been attributed to a healthy attitude toward sexual activity in general and to masturbation in particular.
(…) Masturbation in non-human animals has been observed both in the wild and in captivity.Benefits : 50% decrease of prostate cancer for men having 21 or more ejaculations per month compared to similar group having between 4 and 7 ejaculations per month.
quote and source
Compared to men reporting an average of 4–7 ejaculations per month (EPM), the risk of PCa among men reporting ≥21 EPM in middle age was 50% lower.
Shame around masturbation is cringe 👌
Its also cringe to ignore the fact that it can be a problem. I’m not saying that’s what you’re doing, but I see it a lot and neither extreme is good.
Risks
Compulsive masturbation and other compulsive behaviors can be signs of an emotional problem, which may need to be addressed by a mental health specialist. As with any “nervous habit”, it is more helpful to consider the causes of compulsive behavior, rather than try to repress masturbation.See also
Persistent genital arousal disorderToday I learned a lot reading Wikipedia
As long as it’s not hindering your life or harming you or others you’re good. Applies to most things ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
it’s not shame. also I didn’t mean masturbating in general being bad. but a lot of people (me as an example) do it way too often which then os unhealthy for your mental state and dopamine system. if you over-do something, it stops being nice and develops into something not enjoyable anymore.
it’s one thing to masturbate 1-2 a week and doing it 3-4 times daily. as an example.
Yeah. According to their source the difference is risk in prostate cancer