My brain when I was overweight

Orphia
Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
I’d wake up thinking, “I’m too fat, I’m not going to eat anything today”.

I’d be starving myself all day and had no energy to tidy up or learn to shop or prepare food wisely.

I was depleted of glycogen all day, so my brain was in low glucose mode and hangry, and ended up looking for sugar and quick carbohydrate input so as not to kill someone.

Chips, sweets, soft drink, alcohol, chocolate!

I didn’t want to exercise because I didn’t have the energy.

No energy; no energy expended; therefore thinking "need to eat less” then feel guilty because of the things I ended up eating.

A Maladaptive Spiral.

I didn’t want to go for a walk because that would mean I would use energy and my body was too tired. Cognitive Dissonance.

Little did I realise that burning energy means you get to eat more.

You don’t have to “Eat less, move more”.

That’s actually burning the candle at both ends and can lead to the usual health-kick burnouts.

Moving more is good for many things, not just weight management, but exercise is not the one and only way to lose weight. Otherwise, people in a coma would never lose weight.

Doing anything differently and making one small change seemed like it meant making a huge change to my whole existence while always wanting a quick fix that would solve everything.

So much cognitive dissonance was going on that the “quick fix” was to eat as little food as possible every day despite having no plan to eat a bit less via the nutritional and energy attributes of the food itself.

Sound familiar?

Replies

  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    @kshama2001 @ReenieHJ @lgfrie

    Great comments!

    You understand things well.

    I lost all the weight by gradually eating more "healthy" foods.

    I made the change to food that was more "sustainable" gradually, by just having LESS chocolate, sweets, alcohol.

    Nearly 5 years later I know that all those things weren't worth the calories I was spending on them, and were making it a lot harder to maintain weight by causing longer daily periods of hunger, and a lot of "mood swings" or ups and downs.

    But I couldn't have cut those foods out all of a sudden, because my brain wouldn't have let me feel happy.

    I wonder what words to use to explain how our bodies reject drastic diet/intake changes without sounding like someone trying to sell probiotics and/or a particular diet. :D
  • neugebauer52
    neugebauer52 Posts: 1,120 Member
    Those comments above sound so familiar! On top of it - I had to have bread, bread, bread (and whatever I could put onto and into it...) - all those carbs made me feel sleepy and tired. Thanks to MFP and all those supporting members I now know that it is called "trigger food" and "food stacking". So even I learned something, thank you.
  • ReenieHJ
    ReenieHJ Posts: 9,724 Member
    Oh yeh lgfrie, me too. No wonder my weight fluctuated so terribly over my lifetime. I'd pick a starting day, then eat everything I could because I fantasized never having that option again. But then the day came, I'd start, go gung-ho for *maybe* 3 days and feel so deprived I'd call it quits and think 'why bother, I'll never make it to goal anyways', then just gain gain and gain some more. :(
  • katsheare
    katsheare Posts: 1,025 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    My overweight brain plays different odd tricks. I know I am successful at losing weight when I weigh myself daily and prelog my food, but I don't. I'm barely conscious of my excuses.

    The past few months have been a time of me finally owning what I need to do to stay firmly in the healthy range (rather than thinking 'I know how to do this' smugly and then finding myself too big for my clothes - it's only happened once, but once is enough), and they include daily weighing (not something I've ever done before, but I love data and am building some of that in Happy Scale now - and boy did it make Christmas more sane for me!) and knowing that I will be logging. Not just to loose, but to maintain. And that if I'm not doing at least one of those things, I'm probably avoiding something which should be addressed.

    But if I let my conscious brain do all the thinking emotions may start skewing my actions. As you say, @Orphia , little changes that embed stop your brain from freaking out. (And I have absolutely stopped eating/drinking something that wasn't worth the calories I'd be spending on it!)
  • hipari
    hipari Posts: 1,367 Member
    My Overweight Brain loves the following cycle:
    1. Get stressed and/or tired due to some external reason like work events
    2. Because you are stressed and tired, you need rest and food to gain energy
    3. Skip the gym and other physical activities to have time for sofa and food
    4. Feel more stressed, tired and sluggish
    5. Repeat 2-4

    To combat this cycle, I have instated the 10-minute rule: my routine is to go work out on my way home from work (or other activities), so on gym days I have my gear with me all day. If I have packed my gear with the intention of going, I have to go to the gym, put on the gear, and stay in the gym for 10 minutes. Sometimes it really ends with me leaving after the 10 minutes, but usually I end up either doing the workout I originally planned or getting some other form of activity in.

    The Overweight Brain logic that I still need to find a tactic for is my brain’s insistence that whenever I enter a situation where food might not be available for a defined period of time (say, a 2-hour meeting), I go into an eating frenzy before it ”in case I get hungry”. I hate the feeling of hunger, but I want to learn to live with the feeling - not to starve myself, but to change the mindset where the feeling of hunger must be avoided at all calorie costs. I think I should also start keeping a small snack in my purse to give my mind some peace.

    I am also using Happy Scale, and I love it. My heart has a special place for the convenience that is the combination of my Fitbit Aria scale and Happy Scale, because it removes all conscious efforts of weight logging. The Aria automatically syncs my weight to Fitbit, which syncs to MFP, which syncs to Happy Scale, so all I need to do in the morning is step on the scale.
  • xxzenabxx
    xxzenabxx Posts: 935 Member
    I would also starve myself the whole day. I have pcos so I thought I’m too fat and it will spike my insulin if I eat. So I wouldn’t and then I would binge. I would yo yo diet throughout the week and say ‘this time I HAVE to lose 7 kg this month’ even though I was never even that over weight! My average size has been a uk size 10-12. Anyway I’ve now learnt that eating more frequently and balanced meals of protein, fat and carbs has helped me to stay full. Not to me made this way more sustainable. I’ve wasted so much time on yo-yo dieting it’s depressing 😭
  • springlering62
    springlering62 Posts: 8,455 Member
    Rather embarrassing, but my logic was, if I could eat enough of a food, I could make myself sick of it and thus remove any desire for it. Tried it multiple times, especially with chocolate. Never worked. 🤷🏻‍♀️
  • lgfrie
    lgfrie Posts: 1,449 Member
    New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »
    springlering62 wrote: »
    Rather embarrassing, but my logic was, if I could eat enough of a food, I could make myself sick of it and thus remove any desire for it. Tried it multiple times, especially with chocolate. Never worked. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    There's an IG trainer who swears this works. How? You eat your crave foods until the fascination wears off and you become "immune" to them, lose interest and switch to intuitive eating all on your own. But you must be willing to gain weight until all this kicks in. Um, no.

    There are quite a few foods I could happily eat every day for the rest of my life, and have had periods in my life when I ate them constantly without getting the least bit fatigued with them. NY-style pizza, Philly cheesesteaks, wafer cookies of any type, cheeseburgers, fajitas, etc. I would get to 1,000 lbs before finding out that eating until the fascination wears off is more theory than practice.
  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,222 Member
    New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »
    springlering62 wrote: »
    Rather embarrassing, but my logic was, if I could eat enough of a food, I could make myself sick of it and thus remove any desire for it. Tried it multiple times, especially with chocolate. Never worked. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    There's an IG trainer who swears this works. How? You eat your crave foods until the fascination wears off and you become "immune" to them, lose interest and switch to intuitive eating all on your own. But you must be willing to gain weight until all this kicks in. Um, no.

    Just out of curiousity, about how old is the IG trainer.

    As someone who lived through at least 3 decades of obesity, I really have my doubts about the efficacy of that strategy.

    There are a lot of eminently over-eat-able foods in the world, even if we try to overdo them as a mono-diet, one food at a time.

    :lol:
  • OncologyChick
    OncologyChick Posts: 236 Member
    ^^^^^^^
    This!!
    Nothing more, nothing less
  • seltzermint555
    seltzermint555 Posts: 10,740 Member
    Mine was like this:

    90% of the time:
    You look well proportioned. You have always been big even as a kid. You're tall. You're active, you do much more exercise than your smaller friends. You have more energy than your smaller friends! You don't even eat that much fast food, either. These plus-size clothes fit your body perfectly and you get a lot of compliments. So there's nothing wrong with being this size.

    10% of the time:
    OMG you're morbidly obese. You weigh almost as much as your massive husband and male friends. You need to have just hummus and carrots & cucumbers for lunch every day and NO BAD FOOD and you will lose weight. But you tried that and it didn't work immediately so you must have a thyroid disorder. Therefore, just don't worry about it.
  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    edited January 2020
    kristen8000 wrote: »
    I'm currently at step 4. But I refuse to enter into 5. This time I need to find a way to still log, but eat closer to maintenance. And still see the numbers, but not eat low. Pushing thru the mental struggle.

    Good luck everyone. Keep being awesome!


    The Maintenance section of Community is great for that.

    Everyone in there understands the struggle.

    After a while, you get used to the big emotional swings between having a "deficit" some days and "going over" some days.

    Have you tried just checking your weekly net kilojoules/calories every day or so?

    Diary>Nutrition>Calories>Week View>Net Calories


    Great list of thought processes you posted!
  • kristen8000
    kristen8000 Posts: 747 Member
    @Orphia

    Thanks. Yes, I look at the Net Calorie calculator all the time. Right now and for the last 4 weeks I've been netting about 1500ish calories a day. I need to be closer to 1800.

    I am a part of the Maintenance Community and post regularly. I do know that this has to be hard for others too - not just me. The scary thing is that I'm only in losing mode for 2-3 months, unlike some people where they need to lose 100lbs and are in it for years.

    I think you are right that I need to be ok with high days and low days. I'm still in the mentality that each day has to be "under my limit" like losing mode (because I'm one of those that rarely (like 2x in 3 months) go over my limit in losing mode). I think I'm afraid if I have a high day I'm going to keep having them and "give up".

    It's still a work in progress and something I've decided to dedicate 2020 too. Trying to find my balance.

    That pattern I've listed has happened at least 3 times now since 2012. I'm ready to break the cycle. And so is my closet.
  • amusedmonkey
    amusedmonkey Posts: 10,330 Member
    New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »
    springlering62 wrote: »
    Rather embarrassing, but my logic was, if I could eat enough of a food, I could make myself sick of it and thus remove any desire for it. Tried it multiple times, especially with chocolate. Never worked. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    There's an IG trainer who swears this works. How? You eat your crave foods until the fascination wears off and you become "immune" to them, lose interest and switch to intuitive eating all on your own. But you must be willing to gain weight until all this kicks in. Um, no.

    I kind of did that, but not exactly. I would eat a food but track it within calories until the "worth it" factor wears off. After a while, I'm just not as willing to make food sacrifices to fit in meaningful amounts of it so my desire for it diminishes. It does work for me.

    My overweight brain (or my brain in general) never sees me the way I am. When I was morbidly obese I saw myself as thinner in my mind (which lead to some funny situations where I thought I would fit into a certain chair or be able to pass through a narrow space), and at my current weight my brain often thinks I'm bigger (I feel like my perception of space around me is distorted because I imagine my body taking up more space than it actually does.)
  • cianag
    cianag Posts: 29 Member
    Sometimes when I'm shopping I'll see something and think, that looks good. One example, Lemon creme pie. I bought one of those 2 slice packs. After I ate it I asked myself, was that worth it? The answer was, no. So I didn't buy it again.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    New_Heavens_Earth wrote: »
    springlering62 wrote: »
    Rather embarrassing, but my logic was, if I could eat enough of a food, I could make myself sick of it and thus remove any desire for it. Tried it multiple times, especially with chocolate. Never worked. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    There's an IG trainer who swears this works. How? You eat your crave foods until the fascination wears off and you become "immune" to them, lose interest and switch to intuitive eating all on your own. But you must be willing to gain weight until all this kicks in. Um, no.

    Yes, I think I saw this years ago when reading something on intuitive eating. Not a good strategy for me, lol.
  • Unknown
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  • Orphia
    Orphia Posts: 7,097 Member
    edited January 2020
    cianag wrote: »
    Sometimes when I'm shopping I'll see something and think, that looks good. One example, Lemon creme pie. I bought one of those 2 slice packs. After I ate it I asked myself, was that worth it? The answer was, no. So I didn't buy it again.

    Yep.

    I rarely find that cake is worth it. Too much air.

    When deciding if something is "worth it", when I was overweight, I had so much cognitive dissonance and guilt and bad feelings inside, that it was hard to separate one food decision from the many other issues going on.

    Yet another reason to work on one thing at a time when trying to lose weight.

    And, to get advice or deal with big things like depression or smoking first, so you have clearer thinking and more self-worth.

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