OCD and obsesssive calorie counting

Lauradaresyou

My starting weight was 17.8 stone, the pounds had slowly creeped on over the last few years an it took shocking myself to kick me into action. I have sever OCD relating to certain aspects of my life and can never really get a healthy balance once my obsession fixates on something new. The most recent one is my weight an ive began crutinising every single calorie I eat, which is roughly 1000-1100 a day out of my 1630 allowance. Ive recently started trying to swim with my husband daily and we usually do between 60-120minutes (generally its the higher end) aswel as burning around 150-300 calories in work as im currently on night shifts; however I still don't increase my calorie intake. Im on holiday in October which was the reason I decided to start my weight lost in the first place and i lost 21lb in 5weeks pre swimming routine which I was ecstatic about as my fixation pretty much revolves around the number on the scales. However I'm starting to have major issues with the amount of fibre in my diet and it's becoming increasingly uncomfortable to try stay regular. Can anyone recommend anything i could try to help this issue??

Also please no hate or snotty comments, im aware its not the healthiest way to shift some pounds but contructive help would be wonderful

Thank you :-)

RosieRose7673

Have you seen a psychiatrist about these issues?

If you have, make sure you tell them that you are still having obsessive thoughts. If not, you really do need to see a doctor.

You truly are on a slippery slope. You admit you have obsessive tendencies. Please seek help from a professional.

ProfessorPupil

I don't think anyone here is going to give you tips on how to stay regular while starving yourself. This isn't meant as hate, but you really need to get some help. What you are doing is dangerous.

PAV8888

Fixate your OCD on ACHIEVING as opposed to over-achieving your healthy goals. Validate your goals with an external source before fixating.

You MAY have gotten away with 4lb a week weight losses and sub 1000 or even NEGATIVE net calories a day while you were obese without adverse health consequences. You won't continue to be that lucky forever.

There is also a disconnect between your picture and the intimation that you're over 220lbs. As you get closer to a normal weight you will start to lose more and more lean mass relative to the fat you're losing especially at the aggressive deficits you've chosen.

if you are already at the weight implied by your picture you need to quickly fixate on hitting targets that are much healthier than negative calories... or you will end up in hospital getting force fed.

The solution to your problem is to eat more food... including fruits and vegetables that contain fiber!

The recommendation for women is 26g of fiber.

Given a recommendation of approximately 320g of fruits and vegetables for your 4 a day (and better health outcomes if you eat 6 or more), 1g of protein per lb of body-weight, and at least 25% of your calories from fat... you can quickly figure out that even 1200 calories are not enough to get all three.

Note that your "allowance" includes the deficit you chose and is NET of exercise calories. In other words you're supposed to EAT the exercise calories you're spending.

You are using MFP... not as intended.

Best of luck.

ETA: obviously the correct solution, as if it wasn't obvious, is to seek professional help from someone that can help you treat the way you think as opposed to perpetuating a cycle of obsession. The rest will follow.

Lauradaresyou

I don't understand how you can look at a head picture an say I don't look a certain weight :-s I've just changed my profile picture to a body angle an clearly I carry most of my weight on my bottom half so obviously I'm not going to look obsese from the shoulders up.

I eat lots of fruit and vegetables to make up the calories that I eat as I generally don't eat bread and pasta/rice very often. I take vitamins and supplements which I know shouldn't be a replacement for the real thing but it's better than not having it at all

Im more than willing to try an find a resolution hence asking for help and suggestions on things I should be eatting/doing/trying

KateTii

First step would be to see if you can work your way into eating at your calorie goal. You're having issues because you're undereating.

If the OCD won't let calorie counting be a sustainable option, maybe switching to a method that doesn't use calorie counting will help - perhaps a "portion plate" will allow you to get around the OCD tendencies.

DebSozo

Laura, I find that eating fresh salads with green leafy vegetables like spinach and kale help to keep me regular. Cooked green beans are another of my favorites. Also magnesium supplements help soften the stool.

As a side note, I find that Stress B complex vitamins plus a niacin daily have a calming effect for me and keep the angsty cravings down a bit when I'm eating lower calories.

Lauradaresyou

With working nites aswel my days run from 6.45pm when I get up to get ready til 8am when I actually finish work so most of my calories fitted in between 8p-1am as I don't think I could eat a big meal at like 4am. That just wouldn't be practical or doable for me.

Thank you for the portion plate suggestion, I had never thought of that option tbh so that may be an idea for me to try :-D

I do eat quite alot of salads but those 2 particular greens are never included so that would be a good thing for me to try, I do enjoy a smoothie aswel so I could include more greens that way while trying to top up my calories

Thank you for your helpful reccomendations, they help more than just being told I'm doing everything wrong like I'm not already aware of that or as though I'm purposely on some crazy fad diet

htimpaired

PAV8888 wrote: »

Fixate your OCD on ACHIEVING as opposed to over-achieving your healthy goals. Validate your goals with an external source before fixating.

You MAY have gotten away with 4lb a week weight losses and sub 1000 or even NEGATIVE net calories a day while you were obese without adverse health consequences. You won't continue to be that lucky forever.

There is also a disconnect between your picture and the intimation that you're over 220lbs. As you get closer to a normal weight you will start to lose more and more lean mass relative to the fat you're losing especially at the aggressive deficits you've chosen.

if you are already at the weight implied by your picture you need to quickly fixate on hitting targets that are much healthier than negative calories... or you will end up in hospital getting force fed.

The solution to your problem is to eat more food... including fruits and vegetables that contain fiber!

The recommendation for women is 26g of fiber.

Given a recommendation of approximately 320g of fruits and vegetables for your 4 a day (and better health outcomes if you eat 6 or more), 1g of protein per lb of body-weight, and at least 25% of your calories from fat... you can quickly figure out that even 1200 calories are not enough to get all three.

Note that your "allowance" includes the deficit you chose and is NET of exercise calories. In other words you're supposed to EAT the exercise calories you're spending.

You are using MFP... not as intended.

Best of luck.

ETA: obviously the correct solution, as if it wasn't obvious, is to seek professional help from someone that can help you treat the way you think as opposed to perpetuating a cycle of obsession. The rest will follow.

As a fellow OCD sufferer and someone who works in the mental health field, I will say that the bolded part is not how OCD works. You can't really focus it to be positive, because that's against the nature of the illness. Someone with OCD will have intrusive, unwanted thoughts, and engage in compulsive behaviors to make those thoughts go away. If we had control over our obsessions, we'd be unstoppable! (insert pic of t-rex holding extendable claws). In all seriousness, I agree with the others about the professional help. Any therapist worth their salt will know to work with you on exposure and response prevention, and if it's severe enough-an SSRI to help reduce the severity of your anxiety. Best wishes.

jlj9287

htimpaired wrote: »

PAV8888 wrote: »

Fixate your OCD on ACHIEVING as opposed to over-achieving your healthy goals. Validate your goals with an external source before fixating.

As a fellow OCD sufferer and someone who works in the mental health field, I will say that the bolded part is not how OCD works. You can't really focus it to be positive, because that's against the nature of the illness. Someone with OCD will have intrusive, unwanted thoughts, and engage in compulsive behaviors to make those thoughts go away. If we had control over our obsessions, we'd be unstoppable!

YES! Thank you! I might just direct everyone to this every time I hear a "don't worry about, just focus on something more positive."

ForeverSunshine09

I suffered from some pretty epic OCD about 10 years ago. I almost drove myself to a nervous breakdown. I don't think it is in your best interest to continue calorie counting until you get some help on dealing with the reason for your OCD. Only way I ever got over mine was to find and deal with the reason behind my OCD. I still get the urge but, it is under control.

MorganMoreaux

I too have OCD and understand he difficulty of trying to maintain a healthy relationship with calorie counting. Look into cognitive behavioral therapy - it worked wonders for me and allowed me to finally get a handle on my OCD so it no longer controls my life. With respect to your fiber issue - what's going on? Are you getting constipated? How much fiber are you eating a day roughly?

JeromeBarry1

This suggestion gets fiber and ups your calories, but also lets you jui-jitsu the calories into oblivion. First, cook a cup of dry brown rice. This will produce about 2 cups of cooked brown rice. Put all this brown rice in a storage container and refrigerate it for at least 12 hours. This refrigeration converts the starch into resistant starch. The MFP food diary doesn't know what resistant starch is, so you can give yourself a daily portion of 1/3 cup of cooked brown rice, feel free to reheat it, and take credit for it. The fiber adds up, and the resistant starch acts like soluble fiber because it resists digestion in your small intestine. The resistant starch survives intact to your large intestine where it is broken down and consumed by the bacteria in your gut. Cook this once a week, eat this once a day. You get credit for calories that not you, but rather your biome eats, and you get more fiber than you get credit for.

PAV8888

htimpaired wrote: »

PAV8888 wrote: »

Fixate your OCD on ACHIEVING as opposed to over-achieving your healthy goals. Validate your goals with an external source before fixating.
ETA: obviously the correct solution, as if it wasn't obvious, is to seek professional help from someone that can help you treat the way you think as opposed to perpetuating a cycle of obsession. The rest will follow.

As a fellow OCD sufferer and someone who works in the mental health field, I will say that the bolded part is not how OCD works. You can't really focus it to be positive, because that's against the nature of the illness. Someone with OCD will have intrusive, unwanted thoughts, and engage in compulsive behaviors to make those thoughts go away. If we had control over our obsessions, we'd be unstoppable! (insert pic of t-rex holding extendable claws). In all seriousness, I agree with the others about the professional help. Any therapist worth their salt will know to work with you on exposure and response prevention, and if it's severe enough-an SSRI to help reduce the severity of your anxiety. Best wishes.

Thank you for the info re: bolder section which I had not internalised.

We often verbally ascribe "OCD tendencies" to things that do not rise to the level of a true OCD and this is what I had in mind at the time.

PAV8888

Lauradaresyou wrote: »

I don't understand how you can look at a head picture an say I don't look a certain weight

because you have a non overweight looking head?

Take a wild guess as to what is more common on MFP: a non-overweight person whose upper body looks non-overweight and who diets by eating below 1200 Calories a day because they think they are overweight and need to lose a lot of weight fast... or an overweight person whose upper body looks non-overweight doing the same?

My apology for the misjudgement.

The advice remains the same: eat to your calories as specified by the app. Use a trending weight app. Add protein to 1g per lb of body weight at goal within the normal weight range for your height assuming you don't have kidney issues. Eat 26g or more of fiber. Add activity and exercise at a long term sustainable level. Lose weight slowly and steadily while eating the most amount of food you can commensurate with you losing weight and improving your health at an acceptable rate.

Based on some of the issues raised in the thread:

if this is real OCD behaviour then assistance should be sought and possibly MFP is not the right option for you.

I would not worry over-much about the timings of your meals as long as you're controlling your calories.

Working night shift does make life harder and plays havoc with your sleep and also probably makes you more likely to over-eat. However the over-eating is what you're tackling when you control calories.

What times you eat your meals may, perhaps, make it harder for you to feel satiated, and it may even impact the speed of your weight loss at the margins, but it won't stop you from losing weight.

I eat more than 40% of my calories, sometimes more than 50% between 10pm and 2am. Hasn't stopped me from losing weight.

kshama2001

MorganMoreaux wrote: »

I too have OCD and understand he difficulty of trying to maintain a healthy relationship with calorie counting. Look into cognitive behavioral therapy - it worked wonders for me and allowed me to finally get a handle on my OCD so it no longer controls my life. With respect to your fiber issue - what's going on? Are you getting constipated? How much fiber are you eating a day roughly?

I have issues other than OCD and found cognitive behavioral therapy helpful in developing a healthier relationship with found.

rainbowbow

Can you clarify OP? Do you actually have OCD and are you seeking treatment? Are you actually diagnosed with OCD if so, or are you just "self diagnosed" what you think an OCD person is?

..or are you just using it as the term for being anal retentive?

I'd like more information before i respond.

VividVegan

Take weekend breaks. I have OCD as well and on weekends I go from calorie counting to intuitive eating. Hasn't hurt my progress. In fact, it's gotten better. The body is quite intelligent. There even came times where at the very end of those days, I plugged in everything I ate to see how accurate my intuitive eating was (I write it on paper first then log at night). I was still within calorie range. Only difference was protein and sodium was higher lol. Give it a try. It puts the mind at ease.

Montepulciano

I would simply remind that you that MFP is already giving you a deficit amount of calories. Adding back in the calories to meet MFP goal and focusing on adding in fiber as much as you can, should help you. Being under your MFP calorie goal (or any other macro) is not necessarily a good thing for a few reasons, such as you are finding out with fiber. Also as you swim you will be trying to build some muscle and will need protein for that. If you don't have enough protein for your regular day, you will feel both tired and instead of building muscle your body will start breaking down muscle for it. So, use your OCD to work with you to achieve your goals. Focus on hitting your macros around fiber, protein, fat and carbs and calories. The closer you are, the better you are doing.

I am not about to tell you how to manage your mental health. Good luck on your weight loss.

RoxieDawn

OP, mulling over every single one of very low calories you eat and being OCD is a recipe for serious setbacks. One, being on a calorie counting site allows you to continued to be controlled by the OCD, and two the OCD part of the equation keeps you from going over X calories because you feel the need for a larger deficit to loose weight faster, better, etc.

I do not and will not condone a VLCD to begin with and the number 1 reason is it can be dangerous. You already have a side effect possibly due to this right now which is the constipation.

I agree that professional help is something you need to consider fairly soon and just Increasing the calories to include more fiber (fruits, veggies) should help with the other part of it, you need to NET calories at the end of the day.

DebSozo

Erased by me

rainbowbow

RoxieDawn wrote: »

OP, mulling over every single one of very low calories you eat and being OCD is a recipe for serious setbacks. One, being on a calorie counting site allows you to continued to be controlled by the OCD, and two the OCD part of the equation keeps you from going over X calories because you feel the need for a larger deficit to loose weight faster, better, etc.

I do not and will not condone a VLCD to begin with and the number 1 reason is it can be dangerous. You already have a side effect possibly due to this right now which is the constipation.

I agree that professional help is something you need to consider fairly soon and just Increasing the calories to include more fiber (fruits, veggies) should help with the other part of it, you need to NET calories at the end of the day.

I know you have good intentions, but this is not how OCD actually works.