From skwigg's journal:
It's crazy though how abundance creates nonchalance. Restriction creates obsession. When I was dieting, I had to be really careful around sweet or bready things because I would literally eat them until I was in pain and couldn't move. Whole pints of ice cream, entire boxes of mac & cheese, bags of potato chips, whole pans of cookies or brownies. I thought it was normal and everyone fought those tsunami-level cravings. If they didn't follow through on them, they just had better willpower. It didn't occur to me that those urges to eat everything in sight were a biological reaction to STARVATION. It may sound like I eat a lot of dessert now, but the total amount is actually a small fraction of what I would consume during those dieting lapses when I wasn't "allowed" to eat it. I'm leaner now as a baker than I was as a paleo vegan bodybuilder or whatever silly crap I used to subject myself too.
I didn't go right from bingey dieter to being carefree around cakes though. There was this whole trust-building process of consistently feeding myself enough (like for months and years), combined with a baby-step increase in exposure to previous "trigger" foods, plus a crash course in learning to see my thoughts as separate and interesting but not necessarily true. Those three things dismantle overeating urges. Well-nourished people don't think about food constantly, or come mentally unhinged if there's a box of donuts, or believe they're terrible and hopeless based on what they do or don't eat.