The "all or nothing" mentality

missylectro

How do I change that about myself? It seems like I have an on and off switch. The on being I'm very good and follow my diet perfectly and the off I eat every piece of junk food I lay my hands on... I'm really struggling to change that...

Branstin

It's called moderation.

malibu927

Moderation. You don't have to cut anything out of your diet as long as you keep to your deficit. If you want a bit of chocolate or ice cream and have the calories for it, go ahead.

glevinso

Reset your brain. Stop reaching for junk food. Don't tell yourself "well it's an off day so this <bad for you thing> is OK".

If you have an extra snack, so what? Log it, forget it, move on. Don't ruin the rest of the work you put in.

CSARdiver

What you are chasing is perfection, which is impossible. Pursue progress - small changes in your life which have long term benefits.

mlrtri

I have struggled with the "all or nothing" saga for years. I will go on a "diet" and do really well, then fall off that wagon and hit the ground hard. I can NOT continue down that path. This time I need my weight loss journey to be different, to be successful. This time I am changing my lifestyle, not just dieting. I know many people have their issues with "clean" eating. But I am really trying to focus on quality of food for me and my family. Since doing this things I used to enjoy taste too sweet to me. We stopped for fast food while running errands the other day and I had a hamburger, which I had not had for months. It felt like a brick in my stomach. I don't desire to go back.

Other attempts I would just try to count calories and while I at times was successful short term I quickly gained again when I returned to bad habits. I pray that by changing my habits I will be able to lose weight and keep it off.

Best of luck on your weight loss journey.

Kalikel

Some people have daily treats. Some have weekly or monthly treats. Others save treats for rare occasions. You have to decide what works for you. We cannot know.

If you feel that your eating is out of your control, talk to a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. Even if they don't have one, they'll be able to help you work through your issues with food.

Me, I'm in the Rare Treat camp, as far as junk food goes. It gets a lot easier to say "No" when you aren't used to saying "Yes." Once it is a habit, it's not all that hard. Fruit is very sweet.

farfromthetree

What helped me with this was logging my food daily. I just stopped eating when I reached my goal. I dont know why but it worked because some nights I just didn't stop eating.

2013sk

Im exactly the same as you! I say to my best friend all the time, im an all or nothing girl.

Well what we need to do is add treats into our day - Ie a chocolate bar. Eat well all day, Have a chocolate bar? Why not. You want something .. .Have it. But allow for it.

See when I start being naughty, I think ... Oh I have ruined it. But I need to stop that. I need to start my day, and if I want a burger/chips/pizza - I need to count the calories for it, or get my *kitten* to the gym & burn it off hahaha!!!

rhtexasgal

I don't have an on and off switch anymore ... it took time to transition to a "dimmer" switch! I don't use the word diet anymore because that translates to "deprived" to me. Instead, I refer to my healthy eating plan. I make sure I allot 100 calories each day to a treat - one cookie, a fun size candy bar or small cup of hot chocolate, etc. Funny thing is, once I started building in a small treat, more often than not, I did not eat it! With me, it is all about the psychology of it all. Sure, I KNOW I am doing it but I am also giving myself permission to do so which sort of alleviates the pressure of being "on" all the time.

Vanilla_Lattes

I weigh and account for my calories either the day before or early morning, so if there's a "treat" I want, I say I'll work it in my calories tomorrow. I usually don't even want it anymore the next day. This seems to work for me, and I have an all or nothing/ obsessive mentality as well.

lemurcat12

Yes, that's a good thing to work on. It was really helpful for me when I stopped thinking of imperfection in following a plan (whether a skipped working or eating something I hadn't intended to at the beginning of the day or even going over on calories) as meaning that the day or week or whole diet was "ruined," so I might as well blow off everything and start again later.

Part of this is just telling yourself that you won't be perfect but can always work on improving, and part (related to that) just forgiving yourself. I think Kalikel has a pretty good attitude about this from other things she's said--ask yourself if you wanted to do whatever it was and it made you happy. If so, it's okay to figure out how to include it within the course of your overall fitness plan.

For me, I found journaling really helpful in trying to figure out why I'd do things that wouldn't necessarily make me happy or seem worth it and in helping myself build new habits and just be thoughtful before deciding to eat whatever or blow off the workout. It also gave me something to do to work through being upset about going off plan (or dealing with guilt or whatever your usual deal is) so that I wouldn't see myself as having blown it, but understand the imperfection was part of the new lifestyle.

It's all a process.

mustgetmuscles1

It is very common. Maybe its time to try a different approach.

http://wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/

All-or-Nothing Dieting & Eating Disorder Risk
In 1997, a general physician named Steven Bratman coined the term orthorexia nervosa [21], which he defines as, “an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food.” It reminds me of the counterproductive dietary perfectionism I’ve seen among many athletes, trainers, and coaches. One of the fundamental pitfalls of dichotomizing foods as good or bad, or clean or dirty, is that it can form a destructive relationship with food. This isn’t just an empty claim; it’s been seen in research. Smith and colleagues found that flexible dieting was associated with the absence of overeating, lower bodyweight, and the absence of depression and anxiety [22]. They also found that a strict all-or-nothing approach to dieting was associated with overeating and increased bodyweight. Similarly, Stewart and colleagues found that rigid dieting was associated with symptoms of an eating disorder, mood disturbances, and anxiety [23]. Flexible dieting was not highly correlated with these qualities. Although these are observational study designs with self-reported data, anyone who spends enough time among fitness buffs knows that these findings are not off the mark.

dopeysmelly

It might be related to having "good" and "bad" thoughts about food and healthy habits, which become mixed up with guilt. Food can't be good and bad.

Logging accurately can be a great way IMO to take a lot of the emotion out of your dietary habits. It's just data and a bunch of numbers anyway, which you manipulate to achieve your goals.

dopeysmelly

Kalikel wrote: »

Some people have daily treats. Some have weekly or monthly treats. Others save treats for rare occasions. You have to decide what works for you. We cannot know.

If you feel that your eating is out of your control, talk to a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. Even if they don't have one, they'll be able to help you work through your issues with food.

Me, I'm in the Rare Treat camp, as far as junk food goes. It gets a lot easier to say "No" when you aren't used to saying "Yes." Once it is a habit, it's not all that hard. Fruit is very sweet.

Why did this get flagged????

SnuggleSmacks

missylectro wrote: »

How do I change that about myself? It seems like I have an on and off switch. The on being I'm very good and follow my diet perfectly and the off I eat every piece of junk food I lay my hands on... I'm really struggling to change that...

It appears that you've incorporated a lot of moral jugdements into your behavior with food. Even here, following your diet is "good." And the thing is, there should be no moral judgement attached to food or eating, unless you're actually stealing the food.

Healthy is not a black and white proposition. It's a very broad spectrum, and every choice you make, from getting up in the morning to what and how much you eat to how much you move, is somewhere on that spectrum. And the spectrum isn't "good" or "bad"...it's "more healthy" and "less healthy."

All of your choices won't be all the way to the very edge of the "more healthy" side...if they were, you'd be a robot. An exhausted robot. You should simply shoot for, at the end of the day, the majority of your choices to swing past neutral into "more healthy" territory.

Keep in mind that mental and emotional health is important as well. Are you really happy when you're being "good" and saying no to a bunch of stuff you want? If you say "yes," does it start a horrible cycle of shame and guilt, and then binging because, well, you're already in the deep end, you might as well swim? If you get rid of the blame, shame and guilt, and stop attaching judgement to food, then maybe you can get to a point where having a single piece of cake or a couple of cookies is not a big deal, and doesn't send you into a shame spiral of eating and giving up.

When I changed my attitude about food and decided that I was going to eat anything I wanted, including desserts, and take all negative emotion out of it, I found myself eating a lot less sweets and having a lot more control over them. Now I ask myself if it's something I really love. If it is, I'll eat it. If not, I'll be a total snob and say no, it's not good enough for me. I do this with doughnuts at work. If it's Paul's bakery doughnuts from down the street, I'll say yes...but you can keep your Krispy Kreme. And if I want to have a really indulgent day, going out with my sweetheart, favorite restaurant, order a pizza once in a while, I do, knowing that it will delay my progress by a day or two, but it won't derail or negate what I've already done.

It takes a lot of work to change your mindset about food, but it's well worth it, and can stand you in good stead when you reach your goal and want to stop counting calories.

jrline

DO NOT TRY TO ELIMINATE ANY FOODS YOU ENJOY!!!!!

As long as you follow that you should be able to not over indulge when you have a treat.

glevinso

dopeysmelly wrote: »

Kalikel wrote: »

Some people have daily treats. Some have weekly or monthly treats. Others save treats for rare occasions. You have to decide what works for you. We cannot know.

If you feel that your eating is out of your control, talk to a therapist who specializes in eating disorders. Even if they don't have one, they'll be able to help you work through your issues with food.

Me, I'm in the Rare Treat camp, as far as junk food goes. It gets a lot easier to say "No" when you aren't used to saying "Yes." Once it is a habit, it's not all that hard. Fruit is very sweet.

Why did this get flagged????

I will never understand why some people's very normal and helpful posts get flagged.