What do you all do to strengthen willpower???
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ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
This x100!!0 -
HappyCampr1 wrote: »For me, it's not about food. If I'm going off the rails with eating, it's usually a sign that something else is going on in my life that I need to address. I tend to go overboard when I'm stressed, or overwhelmed, or just whelmed, or just not in control of what's going on in my life. The reality for me is that I only have a finite amount of willpower, and if I'm using it to keep from strangling someone, there's not much left to keep me from scarfing down food by the fistful.
This sounds familiar. I totally relate.
Yeah, this is my issue too.
On the other hand, unlike some other person is claiming, my issues never have to do with the fact that I generally always have ice cream in my freezer. Just because I have something at home doesn't mean I'll eat it or that it requires huge willpower not to, because I have a good evening routine established. My overeating these days almost never happens at home when it occurs, and in the rare chance it did it would be after an impulse buy on the way home or through orderering in. Thus, these weird rules that some seem to think apply to everyone, as if everyone had the same specific challenges are annoying.0 -
ihatetodietalways wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
Because you can lose weight and have sugary foods. You don't need to cut them out of your life completely.
Some of us have found out that restricting them completely led to cycles of perfect restriction followed by binging followed by more restriction and so on.
I'm off that rollercoaster.
Today's sugar consumption? 35 calories of mini chocolate chips stirred into my yogurt and raspberries. A little treat, hardly any calories, fit into a teeny calorie allowance, and I'm perfectly satisfied.
Agreed, you don't need to cut them out completely. But they sure are a trigger food for a lot of people.
Not for me. Maybe you shouldn't make assumptions that others are just like you.
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I'm not a sweets person either. When I really started to look healthy is when I started exercising. I think it is from the improved blood flow. I've pinked up and perked up.
This argument goes round and 'round, but I'll state it again. People don't get fat on twinkies. They get fat from eating too much. There are heavy people who eat very nutritious diets. Sure there are trigger foods I keep away from (garlic bread), but they aren't evil either.
I nabbed a jelly bean on the way out the door this morning. Will I die? It is aquamarine in color.0 -
If the jelly bean isn't green, yellow, or Dr Pepper, it's a waste of calories and you'll fail to maintain you weight.I'm not a sweets person either. When I really started to look healthy is when I started exercising. I think it is from the improved blood flow. I've pinked up and perked up.
This argument goes round and 'round, but I'll state it again. People don't get fat on twinkies. They get fat from eating too much. There are heavy people who eat very nutritious diets. Sure there are trigger foods I keep away from (garlic bread), but they aren't evil either.
I nabbed a jelly bean on the way out the door this morning. Will I die? It is aquamarine in color.
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You guys, you've got me grinning.
I get phantom scents that drive me crazy. This morning it was toasted rye with butter. But I ended up eating something else instead.0 -
UltimateRBF wrote: »ihatetodietalways wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
Because you can lose weight and have sugary foods. You don't need to cut them out of your life completely.
Some of us have found out that restricting them completely led to cycles of perfect restriction followed by binging followed by more restriction and so on.
I'm off that rollercoaster.
Today's sugar consumption? 35 calories of mini chocolate chips stirred into my yogurt and raspberries. A little treat, hardly any calories, fit into a teeny calorie allowance, and I'm perfectly satisfied.
Agreed, you don't need to cut them out completely. But they sure are a trigger food for a lot of people.
Yes, but contrary to your line of reasoning, that by no means everyone needs to cut out or even reduce sugary foods. Don't extrapolate your issues to everyone else.
Agree. Not everybody, or even a lot of people, have a problem with "trigger foods." In fact, I would say "trigger foods" is a state of mind.
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Here's what gets me. People try loading this impossible diet plan on themselves so they've got an internal dialogue going on all day, "NO" to the habitual stop at Tim's in the morning, "NO" to office cake, "NO" to the vending machine in the coffee room, "NO" to second helpings of pasta at supper, "NO" to the garlic bread on the side, and then BAM, willpower shot. Triple serving of Ben & Jerry's with hot chocolate sauce to finish off the day, with a side order of all dressed crinkle chips with full-fat ranch dip. They feel like a failure after negotiating a minefield of temptations all day. They weren't a failure. Their willpower ran out. Not because they were weak, but because at some point, everyone's willpower depletes.
I'd rather they take on one challenge at a time and succeed every time. When I succeed, I feel stronger.
Now, I've fielded all these temptations and more, but I shot them down one at a time. It is now habitual to take the better choices, while choosing to give in to a "temptation" under control, once in a while.
You just described what my life used to be like, until I learned to plan out my food each day.
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ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
Well.....no.
Sugary foods are not crappy. It's not the sugary foods' fault that you or anyone else has diabetes. Heck, it's nobody's fault if you/anyone else has diabetes. It's a medical condition to where your body does not properly metabolize carbs (which includes sugar). Sugar doesn't cause it either, but if you've got diabetes your body doesn't like sugar very well. That's all there is to it.
No food, even sugar food, has power or any person in this world, except for the power the person gives it.
If you have no medical issues to where you limit sugar then there is no reason to cut out "sugary foods", unless you fear (False Evidence Appearing Real) consequences or you simply feel like you want to allocate your calories elsewhere. But, to call any food crappy is giving it power that it does not have.0 -
ihatetodietalways wrote: »DeguelloTex wrote: »
Because it's possible to lose weight while eating crappy, sugary, delicious food.ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
Yes, but in the long run, you will not sustain your weight.
That's not true. That is an oversimplified generalization.
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ihatetodietalways wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
Because you can lose weight and have sugary foods. You don't need to cut them out of your life completely.
Some of us have found out that restricting them completely led to cycles of perfect restriction followed by binging followed by more restriction and so on.
I'm off that rollercoaster.
Today's sugar consumption? 35 calories of mini chocolate chips stirred into my yogurt and raspberries. A little treat, hardly any calories, fit into a teeny calorie allowance, and I'm perfectly satisfied.
Agreed, you don't need to cut them out completely. But they sure are a trigger food for a lot of people.
I agree with you. Definite trigger food for me.0 -
ihatetodietalways wrote: »mamapeach910 wrote: »ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
Because you can lose weight and have sugary foods. You don't need to cut them out of your life completely.
Some of us have found out that restricting them completely led to cycles of perfect restriction followed by binging followed by more restriction and so on.
I'm off that rollercoaster.
Today's sugar consumption? 35 calories of mini chocolate chips stirred into my yogurt and raspberries. A little treat, hardly any calories, fit into a teeny calorie allowance, and I'm perfectly satisfied.
Agreed, you don't need to cut them out completely. But they sure are a trigger food for a lot of people.
I agree with you. Definite trigger food for me.
Food for thought: if one is "triggered" by food, that means one if giving that food power. That does not make sense to me at all.0 -
Trigger words. Trigger food. When did people start being so passive about their own lives?0
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DeguelloTex wrote: »Trigger words. Trigger food. When did people start being so passive about their own lives?
Just because it isn't an issue for you doesn't mean it's not an issue for others. Stop making sanctimonious judgments about how people live their lives. We're all here because we ate too much--for a huge number of reasons -- including you.0 -
ihatetodietalways wrote: »I find it funny that fitness pal is for losing weight, but people are very defensive about cutting crappy sugary foods.
I don't think MFP is only for losing weight. There are plenty of people here who are not trying to lose any weight at all. (not me of course,
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DeguelloTex wrote: »Trigger words. Trigger food. When did people start being so passive about their own lives?
Just because it isn't an issue for you doesn't mean it's not an issue for others. Stop making sanctimonious judgments about how people live their lives. We're all here because we ate too much--for a huge number of reasons -- including you.
Right, but with respect to the big question -- how to avoid overeating -- isn't it wrong to give one-size-fits-all advice, like "avoid all sugary 'crap' or fail," like that person you agreed with, and instead better to acknowledge that we are all different and the specific temptations people face are different. It seems rude to me to assume or say that others will fail because they eat sugar (or keep sugary 'crap,' which I expect includes that horrible awful no-good ice cream) in their freezers.
Personally, my biggest challenges have nothing to do with what I keep at home, so thinking of certain foods as "triggers" which must be avoided would doom me to failure, as the fact is that I am offered food or delicious food is made easily available to me at almost all times, which probably is not that uncommon. So having a strategy that prevents this from being the end of the world (oh, lord, Bob offered me a cupcake, and it's a trigger food!) seems quite important, and more effective than deciding certain foods are the enemy.
Anyway, for me, if there were a "trigger" it would be times. If I regularly stick to regular meal times I find eating well easy (regardless of what I eat, although I usually eat pretty balanced nutritious meals). This is so even if I add a dessert after a meal. If I allow myself to start snacking, I very quickly start wanting food throughout the day and thinking I am hungry when I am not, but am merely stressed or sad or wanting to procrastinate. However, unlike the poster you agreed with, I do not insist that because snacking does not work for me that it must not work for anyone and that anyone who snacks isn't interested in getting healthy and would fail.0 -
If "take responsibility for your choices and don't try to blame someone else's words or sugar for your failure to meet your goal" is sanctimonious, I'm fine with that.DeguelloTex wrote: »Trigger words. Trigger food. When did people start being so passive about their own lives?
Just because it isn't an issue for you doesn't mean it's not an issue for others. Stop making sanctimonious judgments about how people live their lives. We're all here because we ate too much--for a huge number of reasons -- including you.
Yeah, I ate too much and didn't move enough. That's not sugar's fault or my parents' fault or the fault of anything anyone ever said. It's my fault and I've taken responsibility for my poor choices and am making better ones. It beats blaming a particular kind of food.
All kinds of things are issues for people. Some of them involve putting on your big girl or boy pants and accepting you're the one who has to make the effort and you're the one ultimately responsible for your failure or success. Handling the devil sugar is one of those, for almost everyone.
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