My brain when I was overweight

Orphia

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

@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

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

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

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.

Orphia

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.