Am I doing this right?

ami_bemi_bear

Hello!

I've had some really great help in this forum before, so I was wondering if anyone can help me if I give a general overview of my aims, current progress and things I'm struggling with?

I have set my food diary to public for now to help. I've tightened up my logging since Monday (17th), any further back and I must say dinner is barely ever put in there!

My main goal is to lose weight, I've currently since the end of February lose just over 4st (UK) - about 57lbs total. I'm 6ft and currently 15st 8lbs (218lbs) down from 19st 9lbs (275lbs).

I have enrolled in a gym close to me and am doing Small Group Personal Training 3 times a week, along with Pilates once a week and sometimes a Strength class once a week. The SGPT involves core exercises, strength training and conditioning (mostly HIIT cardio like slams, battle ropes, and rowing). I've been doing this for the last 2 months.

I'm not currently sure what my target weight is, but probably around 12st 7 (175lbs).

I'm currently struggling with the mental side of everything, and drop back into emotional eating to cope with anxiety. I combat this by trying to find other things to do like reading and drinking tea (I'm in the UK it's very normal here!). I'm going through a mental rough patch at the moment and I'm finding it hard to sustain my motivation.

I know why I want to do this, I don't know why I drop into self-sabotage to deal with my anxiety.

Could anyone offer any advice?

kommodevaran

You have lost a great burden - be proud of yourself! I personally don't think distracting yourself is very efficient, when it comes to emotional eating. Someone said this so cleverly the other day: If you want to quit stuffing your face, you’ve got to start facing your stuff. I looked at your diary - it looks like you like a lot of different foods, but heavy on the chicken - do you feel that you're choosing food freely, food you truly like?

And are you enjoying your exercise - or exercising to lose weight?

ami_bemi_bear

kommodevaran wrote: »

You have lost a great burden - be proud of yourself! I personally don't think distracting yourself is very efficient, when it comes to emotional eating. Someone said this so cleverly the other day: If you want to quit stuffing your face, you’ve got to start facing your stuff. I looked at your diary - it looks like you like a lot of different foods, but heavy on the chicken - do you feel that you're choosing food freely, food you truly like?

And are you enjoying your exercise - or exercising to lose weight?

Thank you so much for replying

I think I get that quote and it does resonate with me - a lot of the time the emotional eating is just a mask (take last night's waffles for instance)

Yeah, I have a lot of chicken because it's easy (I get it cooked and frozen and can just put it in the microwave with frozen veggies and microwavable rice), it means I don't have to do too much prep around an already stressful evening!

I'm enjoying the exercise but the primary goal is weight loss and muscle tone; I wouldn't keep up with it if I hadn't found something I enjoy though. I'm not much good at sticking to things when they bore me!

Deviette

First off congrats on the weight loss so far! You're making amazing progress.

First thing I'd ask is have you had any sort of diet break since feb? Losing weight for long periods of time can be exhausting, eating at maintenance calories for a week or so can just be the break you need to help you keep going.

Something to help with the emotional eating, every time you feel like you want to emotional eat (or find yourself doing it) write down how you feel. Stressed? Bored? Angry? Then also write down what you were doing precisely before you got this feeling. Also note the time. This can help you identify patterns and triggers.

Another thing, I'm not seeing any logged exercise are you eating back at least some of your exercise calories? It could just be that you're not quite eating enough to fuel your workout and it's draining you.

ami_bemi_bear

Deviette wrote: »

First off congrats on the weight loss so far! You're making amazing progress.

First thing I'd ask is have you had any sort of diet break since feb? Losing weight for long periods of time can be exhausting, eating at maintenance calories for a week or so can just be the break you need to help you keep going.

Something to help with the emotional eating, every time you feel like you want to emotional eat (or find yourself doing it) write down how you feel. Stressed? Bored? Angry? Then also write down what you were doing precisely before you got this feeling. Also note the time. This can help you identify patterns and triggers.

Another thing, I'm not seeing any logged exercise are you eating back at least some of your exercise calories? It could just be that you're not quite eating enough to fuel your workout and it's draining you.

Thank you so much for replying, I really do appreciate it

I haven't exactly had a diet break, but I subconsciously slipped into eating much more earlier in the year when I started my new job and my weight loss did slow down significantly at that time. It might be something that I should think about doing soon. I think knowing I get weighed on an InBody machine at the gym once a month stops me wanting to do this because it will look like my progress has slowed, if you see what I mean. Also, we're going on holiday abroad in November over my birthday so I'm reluctant to increase my net calories before then.

Thank you for the idea about writing it down - I will try this. A lot of the time I struggle to identify what has triggered the anxiety, so making a note of the situation in the immediate before period would definitely make sense

I don't log my exercise at the moment, so it's not accounted for. I'm almost scared of trying to log it because I have no way of measuring exactly how much I've burnt - though I have asked for a FitBit for my birthday. I've been really bad at logging my dinner before this week as well, so I'm going to make it a better habit to log my dinner.