How To Start Off Wrong (from member experiences)

NovusDies
NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
How have YOU failed?

These are as many of mine as I can think of at the moment:

1) Assumed that I must eat healthy food.

2) Do the same diet my wife is doing.

3) Meal replacement shakes

4) Pills - prescription and OTC

5) Eating very little food

6) Exercise the pounds away mentality

7) Picked a diet because a friend or coworker lost some weight doing it

8) Picked a diet because of internet or similar research

9) Ate foods to speed up my metabolism or fat burning (go grapefruit power!)

10) Ate more often to speed up my metabolism.

11) Believed some scheme because I was told my weight gain was not my fault

12) Believed fat was the enemy

13) Believed a doctor

14) Thought I needed to start off behaving like all the healthy weight people I knew

15) Had cheat meals

«13

Replies

  • teresadannar
    teresadannar Posts: 199 Member
    lgfrie wrote: »
    My list:

    4) Making too big a deal about food even while successfully dieting - such as, spending hours or chunks of hours planning out and talking about the next meal - thus never breaking that obese person habit of thinking/planning/dreaming/wanting/craving/needing food constantly. Even while successfully dieting, spending the whole day thinking about the next meal, very understandable given the often-a-little-hungry nature of dieting, contains the seeds of a future diet breakdown.

    This is where I'm at, even after a year, maybe not hours, maybe not constant, but yes, this hits a chord.
    How do you move past it?
  • yirara
    yirara Posts: 9,906 Member
    I only eat 1400 calories per day. Thus I can't be gaining weight. (hint: I did!). That was before I came here.
  • NovusDies
    NovusDies Posts: 8,940 Member
    teresadannar wrote: »
    lgfrie wrote: »
    My list:

    4) Making too big a deal about food even while successfully dieting - such as, spending hours or chunks of hours planning out and talking about the next meal - thus never breaking that obese person habit of thinking/planning/dreaming/wanting/craving/needing food constantly. Even while successfully dieting, spending the whole day thinking about the next meal, very understandable given the often-a-little-hungry nature of dieting, contains the seeds of a future diet breakdown.

    This is where I'm at, even after a year, maybe not hours, maybe not constant, but yes, this hits a chord.
    How do you move past it?


    I think it is common to put food on a pedestal but does it really belong there? It might help to gain perspective by making a list of all the ways that the food experience sucks. The goal is not to be anti-food but to have some mental ammunition to shoot down unhelpful thoughts. When I made my list I got quite mad... but I got over it.
  • AliciaHollywood
    AliciaHollywood Posts: 102 Member
    janejellyroll wrote: »
    AliciaHollywood wrote: »
    Doing 3-5 day water only fasts. Did absolutely nothing! EXCEPT it did make my stomach “shrink” so I was eating less after that and was extremely mindful of what I ate, eating ONLY super nutritious foods. But now I realize I can just stick to low cal super nutritious foods without a 5 day fast!

    I’m shocked that you put eating healthy food as a negative! I really enjoy eating healthy food, it makes me feel good about myself and I enjoy the taste better than all the crap a lot of people eat. Once you train yourself to eat only nutritious food, you will no longer have weight problems. I’ve never been above the lower end of ”normal” weight because of that. I’m only here to lose extra vanity pounds to get to the lowest safe weight for my height because they’ve proven that thin people who eat healthy with nutrition packed foods live longer and are less likely to get other diseases like diabetes, heart problems and even cancer (unless genetic.) There is NOTHING WRONG WITH EATING HEALTHY! This is what people should strive for!

    For many of us, the problem isn't the objective experience of eating healthy foods, it's the assigning all foods into categories of either "good" or "bad" and feeling guilty if we eat (or even want to eat) foods in the latter category.

    Nobody is saying there is anything wrong with eating healthy. The issue is feeling guilt, stress, and unhappiness when you fail to live up to how you think you "should" eat. And I will say it is personally very unhelpful and even destructive to classify what many people eat as "crap" or consider eating something that I need to "train" myself to do in order to achieve my goals (that is to say, I'm glad it's helpful for you, but it's an approach that is absolutely toxic to me).

    If you've never been outside of a normal weight range, it may be useful for you to spend some time listening to those of us who haven't been and appreciate what life might look like from that perspective.

    When you say "This is what people should strive for!", please appreciate that striving for this literally led me to binge and purge and letting go of it has led me to several years of successful weight management while eating tons of nutrient-dense foods.

    I guess you’re right. The mentality of wanting to put food you know is unhealthy into your body is foreign to me as is smoking cigarettes. I think there are other psychological reasons behind it. It’s not really about food but something else deeper. Filling a hole, a sense of comfort, relief from stress, using it as a main source of joy, distraction, eating unhealthy food because other people around you are, perhaps even unconsciously wanting to be overweight to protect oneself from unwanted sexual attention... Overeating, I believe, has as many psychological issues involved as anorexia and both can be equally dangerous and may require the help of a therapist. If you feel guilty about overeating and then purge, I think therapy or hypnotherapy is a good idea. Instead of feeling bad about what you ate, you should figure out WHY you ate it. What immediate benefit did it give you? Why did you need that benefit at that time? And you CAN train your brain to naturally crave and desire healthy food and be disgusted with dangerously unhealthy food. And I occasionally do binge, but on things like granola or home made low fat/low fat frozen yogurt (with added flaxseed meal, sunflower seeds and chia seeds) but I don’t even feel guilty because although I overdid calories, at least they weren’t unhealthy calories (except the sugar in granola, I try to get low sugar granola!) Or I get TraderJoes organic popcorn kernels and pop in the microwave with no oil, then just dribble on a little healthy extra virgin olive oil with garlic and a dash of Himalayan pink salt and other spices. You can binge on a lot of things that aren’t unhealthy and actually provide many nutrients! :) If you go over your calories with these foods once in a while, at least they are providing healthy nutrients for your body and hopefully you wouldn’t purge!

    For me, I truly enjoy eating healthy food because I research nutrition and know all the benefits these nutrients can provide. I don’t want to age prematurely. I want healthy skin and hair. I’m vain lol. I want a strong immune system. I also take extra supplements. For me it just feels good to know I’m taking care of my body as best as I can. I admit, I HATE exercise, I have some personal block against that, so it’s much easier for me to eat less than exercise. But every time I eat a piece of fruit, I really savor it, I love the taste and it feels so good to know that it is giving me health. I love veggies too! Nature is amazing. It created these things that grow on a tree or in the ground that give me all the nutrients I need so I can survive and protects me from free radicals, pollutants, and diseases! And I love spices! I add healthy spices to foods to make them even more delicious and healthy. I cut up pieces of an apple and sprinkle on cinnamon and ginger. Yum! I look at food as delicious medicine, which it ultimately is!

    I’m not saying that I NEVER eat unhealthy food, I do like the occasional pizza (extra thin crust with veggie toppings) or Thai food (spicy shrimp Pad Thai) but take half home for the next day. I’ll try a taste or two of a really interesting appetizer or special dessert at a catered event. I do drink socially, but not alone, mostly white wine or tequila, but I do like the occasional sweet drink (Baileys & Malibu!) and LOVE champagne. I know alcohol isn’t good for you, but I do keep it in moderation and never drink alone. That’s usually what makes me gain weight, food & alcohol at parties. But even then, I pay attention to what I’m eating/drinking and if I gain 5 lbs or more, I immediately try to correct it before it goes too far. But I know at catered events how to fill my plate so it’s as healthy as possible. The thing is, if I know something is really unhealthy, it literally grosses me out. I won’t even drink Diet Coke, not because of calories, but because it’s putting poison in my body. 100% fruit juice has more calories but is supplying nutrients (but still should be consumed in moderation due to high sugar.) I read all labels in the supermarket and won’t eat anything with chemicals or high fructose corn syrup. Why put poison in my body? That’s how I look at it I guess. Fried food disgusts me, I can’t even look at it without wanting to throw up. But fresh organic fruit? It just looks beautiful to me. It tastes amazing to me. And has the benefit of all those nutrients! And I do believe people can train their brains to crave healthy food and be disgusted by unhealthy food just the way people can quit smoking. Hypnotherapy can help too for both issues. Once you can divide foods into either foods that will sustain your body and provide disease fighting nutrients or foods that can literally kill you, it becomes pretty easy...

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