| I had a very similar experience. There is a point you made here "losing enjoyment for eating (and drinking)" that I think is The Key, but also not what people think when they hear it without experiencing it. Someone hearing that line might think it makes food "unenjoyable," as in "bad." That is not the case. It is "unenjoyable" as in "lacking in a joyful experience." After talking with friends of mine who are similarly aged to me but have not had the major weight struggles I've had, I realized one of the biggest differences between us is not our drive or discipline (they envy me in many of these areas), it's in the sheer level of enjoyment that I get out of food and drink that they do not. There are certain foods that, if I have them, they make me more hungry. I can't physically fit enough spaghetti or chocolate pudding into my mouth to satisfy my craving for it. My favorite beer feels glorious all the way down my throat and into my stomach; I can go from depressed to happy in 10 seconds just from that first gulp. And it's just those specific things. I'm not going to scarf down hard on lasagna or chocolate ice cream. While I enjoy whiskey, wine, cocktails, and other beers, I can have one in a night and be done. There are also foods that are the opposite. I physically cannot stomach muscles or cuccumber. Putting cauliflower--in any form--on my plate is likely to start an argument. All leafy greens feel like a punishment; I can choke them down, unlike muscles, but I'm not going to like the person who made me do it. But my friends without weight issues have never had these experiences with any foods. Food is just a way to avoid hunger. Booze is just a way to get drunk. There's no strong emotional connection to any of it. And GLP-1 agonists completely remove that. I've heard it called "The Food Noise." It's basically a re-baselining of my relationship to food back to what should be "normal." Nothing has a feedback loop of pushing me to consume more anymore. Nothing gives me such strong revulsion that I can't eat it anymore. It's just food, on my plate. I don't even feel hungry, the only reason I'm eating it is because I understand at an intellectual level that I have to in order to not pass out in the middle of the day. |
I still enjoy drinking an IPA just as much, and really I enjoy it much more since I have one every few months instead of 5 every night. I could enjoy one every night, but I don't really need to have it, even though it would be delicious and the buzz is enjoyable, I just don't feel compelled to get it and I know it's not good for me. I knew before it wasn't good for me, believe me as the child of an alcoholic I knew it wasn't good to drink every night, but I did anyway because I had something inside pushing me to do it.
So maybe that is what you are describing, that thing that pushes you to do things you know are bad for you, and which you will regret immediately, but yet you feel like you have to do anyway. It's not enjoying something more, it's more like feeding withdrawal.
Overall I feel like there is someone in control now. I can just decide that drinking a beer every night is bad for me and not aligned with my goals and then I don't do it, and when I rarely think about it I'm just not a person who drinks alone anymore and my thoughts quickly move on to figuring out how to make croissant dough or looking for a scene to post to instagram or some work problem that has been bugging me.