Eating Guilt?

2

Replies

  • Lounmoun
    Lounmoun Posts: 8,423 Member
    I'm not going to feel guilty about eating something unless I stole it.
    I don't have a restrictive diet or think of foods as bad or unhealthy unless they taste bad, are spoiled or I am allergic to it. I eat fast food and desserts sometimes. Food has nutrients. Some have more nutrients in relation to the amount of calories or help me meet my goals better that day. I'm going to use common sense and eat mostly nutritous foods.

    I prelog my food and adjust portion sizes to fit my goals. I look at calories first then meeting my protein goal. I try to eat several servings of vegetables or fruits a day. I generally have 100-300 calories for snacks.
    I pair higher calorie foods with more lower calorie vegetables. I reduce calories in foods by using less cheese, less oil, lower fat milk, thinner crust for pizza. I might skip rice or bread if it doesn't fit well that day. I don't try to have doughnuts, stuffed crust pizza, fried chicken, bacon cheeseburger and a peanut butter shake all in one day.

    If I have a higher calorie day I log it, learn from it and move on. You don't have to be perfect every day to lose weight or have a healthy diet.

    Guilt is not very helpful.
  • fitoverfortymom
    fitoverfortymom Posts: 3,452 Member
    Sometimes I feel bad when I eat too much, but I never feel bad about what I've eaten unless it didn't taste good and wasn't worth the calories. Punishing ourselves over food doesn't help us and an occasional indulgence doesn't either. I feel better when I can plan it in and do get a little uncomfortable when I can't control the eating situation, but for the most part I either log something reasonably similar in the database, or decide I'm having a special-occasion-to-heck-with-it day where I eat what I want and don't log.
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,865 Member
    anl90 wrote: »
    Does anyone else have the problem of feeling guilty eating anything unhealthy? For the past two weeks or so, I have buckled down drastically on what I am eating and drinking, and honestly I am pretty proud of myself. However, I am to the point where it is getting extremely difficult to eat anything other than what I schedule for myself. For example: I have a slice of cake waiting for me in my fridge, and while I really want it, I cannot bring myself to do so. I guess, I feel like eating even the slightest amount of bad stuff makes me a failure. I am sure part of it, too, is I am afraid of going back to my old habits.

    But am I crazy here? Does anyone else have anything similar to this? Please tell me I am not alone..lol

    (Sidenote: I am not saying this is a bad thing necessarily. I just want to know if anyone else has the same feeling.)

    or·tho·rex·i·a
    ˌôrTHəˈreksēə/Submit
    noun
    an obsession with eating foods that one considers healthy.
    a medical condition in which the sufferer systematically avoids specific foods in the belief that they are harmful.
  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    urloved33 wrote: »
    "Food in itself is neither healthy nor unhealthy" so with this kind of thinking....chocolate has the same nutritional health value as...broccoli?



    No, it means it's the overall context of your diet that is important. Chocolate isn't, by itself, unhealthy. Broccoli isn't, by itself, healthy. We need a great many things from our diet so we're lucky that foods come with such a wide range of macro- and micronutrients to help meet our various needs.

    Yep, it's about nutritional needs and goals.

    100 grams of milk chocolate has 18% of your daily value of calcium
    100 grams of broccoli has 4% of your daily value of calcium

    If you need calcium and had to choose between the two, which one is "healthier"?

    IDK - I guess the >500 calories in the 100g of chocolate would deter me
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    urloved33 wrote: »
    "Food in itself is neither healthy nor unhealthy" so with this kind of thinking....chocolate has the same nutritional health value as...broccoli?



    I think the fact that this is the conclusion you drew from the statement that food in itself is neither healthy nor unhealthy says more about your reading comprehension than it does about the poster's thinking...
  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    WanderingRivers wrote: »
    I only go 1200 or under when making up for a binge or I just don't feel good.

    I have a minimum of 5 more lbs to go but I am thinking I may go to a lower goal then I have currently have.

    Again, without knowing more details of what your overindulgence was, I can't say this with absolute certainty - but eating over your maintenance calories at a family gathering is NOT a binge. Binge eating disorder is a clinical diagnosis and comparing eating a few hundred extra calories above your maintenance to the experiences of those with actual BED is inconsiderate at best.

    Secondly, with 5 lbs left to go, even if you decide to lose more but it is less than 20 lbs; you should be aiming for a rate of loss of 0.5 lb/week. That rate of loss would likely put you at a calorie target over 1200 calories, thinking about how you are going to successfully transition to maintenance and what your long term plans are should be part of your consideration now - not feeling guilty about overdoing it at a family bbq and feeling like you have to make up for that. Family events, holidays, special occasions- these are all part of life. Don't you want to develop a healthy sustainable plan for how to cope in those situations, even when you aren't actively trying to lose weight?

  • WinoGelato
    WinoGelato Posts: 13,454 Member
    hesn92 wrote: »
    I think that dividing food into "good" and "bad" categories can lead to unhealthy eating habits (like an eating disorder). In my experience restricting things that I've labeled as "unhealthy" or "bad" just led me to feel deprived and I ended up falling off the wagon altogether because I wasn't learning to eat the things I love in moderation. We have nutritional needs of course and it's good to eat nutritionally dense foods (if that is a good term to use, I'm not sure) but cake, cookies, chips, etc. are not inherently bad. Just if you eat an excess of them and aren't getting your nutrition needs overall.

    x1000
  • cathipa
    cathipa Posts: 2,991 Member
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    cathipa wrote: »
    RelCanonical wrote: »
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    urloved33 wrote: »
    "Food in itself is neither healthy nor unhealthy" so with this kind of thinking....chocolate has the same nutritional health value as...broccoli?



    No, it means it's the overall context of your diet that is important. Chocolate isn't, by itself, unhealthy. Broccoli isn't, by itself, healthy. We need a great many things from our diet so we're lucky that foods come with such a wide range of macro- and micronutrients to help meet our various needs.

    Yep, it's about nutritional needs and goals.

    100 grams of milk chocolate has 18% of your daily value of calcium
    100 grams of broccoli has 4% of your daily value of calcium

    If you need calcium and had to choose between the two, which one is "healthier"?

    IDK - I guess the >500 calories in the 100g of chocolate would deter me

    Again, it's all about goals. If you needed to gain weight (some people have trouble putting food down, or have issues with chewing, for example), chocolate would be the better option. For most of us, chocolate probably wouldn't be the better option because it's calorie-dense, but that doesn't make chocolate "unhealthy". It just means that chocolate is calorie-dense and you'll probably gain if you don't moderate it. But it's not evil. Chocolate doesn't have an agenda.

    Didn't say either food was bad or unhealthy. Just said it would deter me. Agree goals are different for everyone and right now 100g of chocolate would not be in my best interest. That being said the 16g of dark chocolate with sunflower seeds at night for a snack is delicious :smiley:
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    JoeCWV wrote: »
    This thread has left me struggling on my food choices for tonight's snack. Will it be beer or ice cream. Oh, the struggle is real.

    6rZ8g8R.jpg
  • nutmegoreo
    nutmegoreo Posts: 15,532 Member
    hesn92 wrote: »
    I think that dividing food into "good" and "bad" categories can lead to unhealthy eating habits (like an eating disorder). In my experience restricting things that I've labeled as "unhealthy" or "bad" just led me to feel deprived and I ended up falling off the wagon altogether because I wasn't learning to eat the things I love in moderation. We have nutritional needs of course and it's good to eat nutritionally dense foods (if that is a good term to use, I'm not sure) but cake, cookies, chips, etc. are not inherently bad. Just if you eat an excess of them and aren't getting your nutrition needs overall.

    This has been my experience too. Some things too a long time to learn to moderate (ice cream - you were my kryptonite), but I can now keep it in the house and eat one serving when it fits my goals. Much less guilt and shame now.

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