I'm struggling. Tell it like it is.

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HBMairi
HBMairi Posts: 84 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I'm struggling. I was eating healthy, lost weight, got to a size 8, halved my body fat, was feeling confident and happy. I'm now 2 stone overweight, can't seem to motivate myself, eating all the crap I can find. It's like I'm self abusing through food. How do I get off this vicious circle?
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  • hapyfaces2
    hapyfaces2 Posts: 46 Member
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    Focus on health, not weight. Learn your triggers… that's what i am doing and the time for me at 3 o'clock I'm starving. I eat before and little snacks…“Don’t keep foods that you like to binge on… Told to actually taste my food. Remember that more food isn’t necessarily more enjoyable.
  • TavistockToad
    TavistockToad Posts: 35,719 Member
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    herrspoons wrote: »
    Willpower. No one else can do it for you.

    pretty much this...

    you've done it before, so you know you can do it!
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    Weigh and log - no free eating until you've weighed and logged

    Get your head back in it, stop making excuses

    Once you've got that down you can look at loosening control

    (this works for me because I love numbers, spreadsheets and am a total geek)
  • jseo123
    jseo123 Posts: 9
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    I'm sorry to hear that you're going through a difficult time. Don't beat yourself up though! We all go through struggles on our journey to finding our balance--no one gets it easy. I am struggling myself right now! I was eating healthy, lost around 10 lbs in 2 months and then recently started binging on junk food every 3-4 days (probably due to a very restrictive diet). Today I woke up, and found that I had gained back almost 4 lbs. I was devastated.

    It's hard! But you just have to pick yourself up and keep moving forward. It's frustrating because it feels like you're taking a step back for every two steps forward. But you just have to keep convincing yourself to move on. Every step forward counts! You can't give up now! Whether or not you realize it, you've made progress.

    Nothing worth having comes easy, but that's also what makes those things so much more valuable once you've acquired them, right?

    The past doesn't matter anymore because you can't change it. But you can change today and tomorrow and the day after that.

    Keep your goals short term and just keep pushing yourself. You can do it!
  • knajdusak518
    knajdusak518 Posts: 1 Member
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    I'm having a hard time too. I'll have great days where I am eating at a deficit, burn like 1000 calories at the gym and feel great, then other days I can't stop with the grazing. It's awful...I have my motivation, but I have no willpower around food...especially sugary stuff. I am going to try to cut out sugar for awhile and see if it helps with the cravings. I desperately want to lose weight, and I will....but I just feel stuck right now...
  • beets4us
    beets4us Posts: 57 Member
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    If you don't start now, things will just get worse. Imagine yourself even more overweight-you don't want that, do you? But that is where you are headed if you don't get back on track. Life happens, weight goes up sometimes, and that is okay. What is important is that you can turn yourself back around.
  • samhennings
    samhennings Posts: 441 Member
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    jseo123 wrote: »
    I'm sorry to hear that you're going through a difficult time. Don't beat yourself up though! We all go through struggles on our journey to finding our balance--no one gets it easy. I am struggling myself right now! I was eating healthy, lost around 10 lbs in 2 months and then recently started binging on junk food every 3-4 days (probably due to a very restrictive diet).

    This is the point I was going to make. In my opinion the best advice on this forum is that in the vein of looking at diet as a long term thing.

    You need to be able to eat some treats/junk NOW while losing. While on a defecit. Its a fantastic tool to teach you moderation.

    If you can "afford" treats in moderation as part of a balanced diet you have cracked it and its something you can sustain through maintenance and the longer term.

    If you lose weight on a restrictive diet, by its nature its not somethign for the long term, and you end up pushing back against it.



  • HBMairi
    HBMairi Posts: 84 Member
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    Thanks. I dont do "diets". When i got healthy, it was by healthy eating. It allowed the odd treat, but I was eating clean most of the time, and being more active. Doing it all the right way.
  • Sued0nim
    Sued0nim Posts: 17,456 Member
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    HBMairi wrote: »
    Thanks. I dont do "diets". When i got healthy, it was by healthy eating. It allowed the odd treat, but I was eating clean most of the time, and being more active. Doing it all the right way.

    So what went wrong?
  • yash_hh
    yash_hh Posts: 109 Member
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    The distance between you and your goal is called discipline. It's a way of life.
  • Whittedo
    Whittedo Posts: 352 Member
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    Only you control what you put in your mouth and how you exercise, so get back into control.
  • Frappleberry
    Frappleberry Posts: 251 Member
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    Take a step back and allow some time to reflect. What was your motivation first time round? Maybe write down your reasons as well as how good you felt when you lost the weight, hope some of posts here help!
  • SilverRose89
    SilverRose89 Posts: 447 Member
    edited March 2015
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    HBMairi wrote: »
    I'm struggling. I was eating healthy, lost weight, got to a size 8, halved my body fat, was feeling confident and happy. I'm now 2 stone overweight, can't seem to motivate myself, eating all the crap I can find. It's like I'm self abusing through food. How do I get off this vicious circle?

    First off, you actually have a wonderful headstart here this time, because unlike a lot of us, you *know* you can do this. Because you've done it before! So you know exactly what you have to do and, with a bit of reflection, you can also find out exactly where and why it went wrong last time in order to try and take steps to prevent this from happening again.

    Secondly, if you think you are 'self abusing' through food, maybe consider if this is emotional based and if so, why? There is nothing wrong with seeking help from a therapist to work through these issues (I have recently started this myself. No shame here).


  • sharonocallaghan1956
    sharonocallaghan1956 Posts: 30 Member
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    I can identify with this too. Shed 9lbs since starting - then had 3 days (even though I wrote down everything and didn't really binge at all) where I just ate a small piece of chocolate, a couple of glasses of wine - put on a pound! I am a lady of a certain age (59) - I do exercise mainly walking, a lot at least 2.5 miles a day and I have just started to use my spin bike again. Got to take the bike a bit easy as I have bad lower back pain. I suppose it's just oh well don't let this slip derail me completely, it's just so frustrating to have to watch every single thing that goes into your mouth! I am currently 172 pounds - need to be around 155 ish - anyone got any tips on how to do this at a certain age? Onwards and downwards everyone xxxx
  • SilverRose89
    SilverRose89 Posts: 447 Member
    edited March 2015
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    sharonocallaghan1956 wrote: »
    I can identify with this too. Shed 9lbs since starting - then had 3 days (even though I wrote down everything and didn't really binge at all) where I just ate a small piece of chocolate, a couple of glasses of wine - put on a pound! I am a lady of a certain age (59) - I do exercise mainly walking, a lot at least 2.5 miles a day and I have just started to use my spin bike again. Got to take the bike a bit easy as I have bad lower back pain. I suppose it's just oh well don't let this slip derail me completely, it's just so frustrating to have to watch every single thing that goes into your mouth! I am currently 172 pounds - need to be around 155 ish - anyone got any tips on how to do this at a certain age? Onwards and downwards everyone xxxx

    Try not to pay much attention to the odd pound, unless you consumed 3500 calories *over* your maintainance calories (so for me, that is around 5500 calories) you will not have actually put on a pound of true weight.

    Much more likely, it is just water weight which can very drastically (I was up 4lbs the day after the gym the other day, and am regularly up 3-5lbs if I have a night where I drink alcohol)
  • LavenderLeaves
    LavenderLeaves Posts: 195 Member
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    You can't gain 1 pound from 2 glasses of wine and a small piece of chocolate. It's not possible.
  • Wiseandcurious
    Wiseandcurious Posts: 730 Member
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    HBMairi wrote: »
    It's like I'm self abusing through food. How do I get off this vicious circle?

    This is a real thing for a lot of people.

    If you were just saying that to be dramatic, just go with some of the advice given above.

    If you weren't using that language arbitrarily but really feel that way, I would start working on your other issues - the ones that make you want to behave that way. Discipline is all very well, but you need a plan to tackle whatever it is food helps you tackle in other ways if you are to maintain a healthy weight. Mindfulness, self-honesty, help from a trusted friend or professional may be? I was only able to start losing when I learned to live with mydragons and conquer them another way.
  • brenn24179
    brenn24179 Posts: 2,144 Member
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    it is so easy to go back and pick up bad habits. You just have to make yourself do it even if you don't want to. We are all in this together, it is not easy but it is worth it when you can get into those clothes! Yesterday I didn't have to go thru my closet trying to find something I could fit into. That felt great! But the winter weather has been a struggle and I wanted to be greedy and overeat and had to make myself stop and saying Enough.
  • blankiefinder
    blankiefinder Posts: 3,599 Member
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    HBMairi wrote: »
    I'm struggling. I was eating healthy, lost weight, got to a size 8, halved my body fat, was feeling confident and happy. I'm now 2 stone overweight, can't seem to motivate myself, eating all the crap I can find. It's like I'm self abusing through food. How do I get off this vicious circle?

    Keep a diary along with a food journal, and see if there is something specific triggering the binging. Maybe you need to learn new ways to handle stress. Or maybe you just need to learn self-control. Only you can figure out the answer as to which one.
  • PeachyCarol
    PeachyCarol Posts: 8,029 Member
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    sharonocallaghan1956 wrote: »
    I can identify with this too. Shed 9lbs since starting - then had 3 days (even though I wrote down everything and didn't really binge at all) where I just ate a small piece of chocolate, a couple of glasses of wine - put on a pound! I am a lady of a certain age (59) - I do exercise mainly walking, a lot at least 2.5 miles a day and I have just started to use my spin bike again. Got to take the bike a bit easy as I have bad lower back pain. I suppose it's just oh well don't let this slip derail me completely, it's just so frustrating to have to watch every single thing that goes into your mouth! I am currently 172 pounds - need to be around 155 ish - anyone got any tips on how to do this at a certain age? Onwards and downwards everyone xxxx

    I'm of a certain age, a little bit younger than you. You've got to set your attitude that you'll do what it takes to get the job done. That means being honest and consistent with your logging. Measuring and weighing your intake, and being persistent. Weight will come off more slowly at our age. I'm in a stall right now myself, but I'm not too bothered. Your weight will fluctuate. That's normal. My stall is normal. One of the reasons I'm not too bothered about it is because I KNOW I'm tracking everything and eating at a deficit.

    This site works for you if you let it. Log your wine and chocolate days and move on. Be honest with yourself about the calories you're consuming so you can notice trends. It's the only way you'll progress.

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