Calorie obsession... help?

lightweightdiva

I confess, I'm one of those dreaded yo-yo dieters. I've tried every diet under the sun, from the reasonable to the extreme, but I always seem to come back to counting calories.

I've done a lot of work for the past few years to break my bingeing cycle and stop seeing food as "good" or "bad," and to focus on how foods make me feel. I feel like I've been really successful and have a much healthier relationship with food and exercise too. I eat more nutritionally dense food and I work out consistently (usually beachbody programs like insanity mixed with other things I enjoy like yoga and cycling). But I've steadily put on weight and would like to go back to the size I was when I fit all the clothes that now live in a tub under my bed. I stopped weighing myself awhile ago for mental health reasons, but based on the way my clothes fit I would say I have 20-30 pounds to lose.

My biggest problem is that I am always miserable when counting calories. I become obsessive and see everything around me as numbers and stop enjoying food, especially in social situations. I know that I should see this as a lifestyle change instead of a diet and that I should continue to eat the foods I enjoy in moderation, but I still feel the "all or nothing" chorus in the back of my head. Anyone else conquered this beast?

rundgrenrocks

I'm starting to. I have a long way to go, but when I (re)started in September I was angry that I had to keep track of every morsel when most people don't. Now I see it as a responsibility to myself, loving myself, really. If I pre log what I think I'll eat at a restaurant, I can plan the beginning of the day better. If I honestly log a huge lunch, I can adjust at dinner. And exercise gives me a little cushion. I feel like I'm in control now.

cmriverside

Some people can maintain weight intuitively. Some of us need to see trends/numbers etc.

Do what you have to do. I don't find it obsessive to track my food and jump on the body-weight scale. It's the only thing that works for me. I lost a lot of weight and have kept it off for ten years. When I stop logging and weighing myself I can't do that reliably.

I think if you re-frame it: it takes about five minutes a day. That's the same amount of time spent brushing and flossing. Do you think that is obsessive? Of course not. It's body/health maintenance.

tuolon

I am using mfp to retrain myself to eat as a 120 lbs woman. I think that once i get used to portioning my meals out for 120 lbs maintenence, I won't need to calorie count anymore. It will be instinctive. I hope that's what will happen. Maybe that could happen to you. Good luck. I wish you the best.

Jthanmyfitnesspal

No, I have not beaten this! As soon as I stop counting, I start to gain weight. I can only say that, with practice, I can keep the diary up with a bit less effort.

middlehaitch

Could you consider logging, weighing and counting calories for the short term, maybe one or two months?

What you would do in that time is establish your meal/snack frequency, and the portion sizes, both by weight and visually, that you need to eat to lose weight. Once you have that established you could stop logging and go by visual portion sizes most of the time and weighing your food occasionally just to make sure your portions are still on point.

You could pin a note on the kitchen cupboard with your most frequent portion sizes, or have photos on your phone for reference.

Another thing you could do, since you don't want to weigh yourself, is eat at maintenance for the weight you want to be (similar to what @tuolon is doing).

This, once you get close to your goal weight can be really slow, but it does mean that once you have established your eating pattern you should be able to lose without logging, or maybe just logging occasionally so you can check you are still eating to your goal.

If you can keep consistent over time the odd celebration, night out, pizza party etc will not make a dent in your long term goal.

My weight loss was done using the calories I needed to maintain at goal. I have maintained for over 7 years and just do a calorie check every few months.

Learning my portion sizes and weight over the time I was losing meant I was comfortable not logging for the majority of the time.

Cheers, h.