Counting calories so insane !

serpilchiba336

@osmith1999 Thanks so much! I don’t like strength training and not liking so much being at the gym but I do it anyways.I like outdoor sports more. I love salad I eat all kinds of salad.I am ready to make changes because I really want to minimize my sweet cravings.I will add more fish and veggies instead of eating meat everyday.I love eggs and yogurt eating them less will make me so unhappy but I will try. Is 5 minutes oats okay? I want to have a healthy relationship with food.If I can get my bulimia under control with the therapy I will be so glad.I am afraid of eating food and gain weight so I feel guilty even if I eat healthy..I am working on my insecurities and confident .

serpilchiba336

@PAV8888 Hello yes my doctors and therapist s know about my calorie counting.They advice me to try and see how I feel.They don’t want to say that it’s bad or good.They want me to make healthy choices and feel my feelings and see how I react to it.I eat less or some days a lot but keeping food inside me is the challenge. I am trying hard to heal ad learn to
Live with my ED .Thanks for your comment.

PAV8888

I am glad to hear you're discussing these things with them and that you are moving with caution and, possibly and hopefully by the sounds of it, starting to improve.

My (by the looks of it inaccurate) impression, was that direct calorie counting and large sized deficits were not normally encouraged when dealing with someone predisposed to ED(s).

In any case: be kind to yourself! As often as you can!

osmith1999

@serpilchiba336 yes! Just adding in more veggies is huge. Veggies are very beneficial "weight loss" foods and most are very low calories. And I think I mentioned raw veggies are actually negative calories. I understand being sad about having less of something you love, but hopefully that will pass. I learned to love new foods and new experiences. And I also started to view some foods as holiday foods that I would have occasionally or have less of. You are doing well! Keep progressing.

osmith1999

@serpilchiba336 also if counting calories don't work for you try a different approach like meal patterning. For example you could just design the tweaks you want to your current diet and stick to that pattern instead of calorie counting

JBanx256

osmith1999 wrote: »

And I think I mentioned raw veggies are actually negative calories. :

Yes, you mentioned it & someone pointed out that your statement was incorrect. Raw veggies are great but they are absolutely NOT "negative calories."

kshama2001

serpilchiba336 wrote: »

@PAV8888 Hello yes my doctors and therapist s know about my calorie counting.They advice me to try and see how I feel.They don’t want to say that it’s bad or good.They want me to make healthy choices and feel my feelings and see how I react to it.I eat less or some days a lot but keeping food inside me is the challenge. I am trying hard to heal ad learn to
Live with my ED .Thanks for your comment.

PAV8888 wrote: »

I am glad to hear you're discussing these things with them and that you are moving with caution and, possibly and hopefully by the sounds of it, starting to improve.

My (by the looks of it inaccurate) impression, was that direct calorie counting and large sized deficits were not normally encouraged when dealing with someone predisposed to ED(s).

In any case: be kind to yourself! As often as you can!

You are correct that large deficits are discouraged during ED treatment. We've also had many posters in treatment say they are not supposed to count calories, but I don't know how universal this is.

@serpilchiba336 now that I know you're in treatment I'm not going to offer any more advice to you, other than to show this thread to your treatment team.

CrazyMermaid1

I’m only speaking for myself, but I’ve found that when I’m under severe pressure my go-to is comfort food. It’s my therapy. So taking that off the table while I’m going through a stressful situation was not possible for me. I needed that food for my sanity. Once that burden was lifted off it became much easier for me to lose.

frhaberl

@serpilchiba336 My advice is to you is to rely on the professional help you are getting and take any advice you get here in the context of it being kindly offered, but potentially not the right advice for you.

I agree that it might be helpful for you to show this thread to the people who are helping you to deal with your ED. They can help you sort through what advice can be helpful and what advice has a higher potential to feed into the negative thought and behavior cycle you're struggling with.

I've never been treated for an ED, and I'm not a expert. All I can offer is what I think I'm observing in your posts and ask you to consider something different (if your professional team agrees).

It sounds like you are seeing the path you need to walk as a path of restriction, with happiness/success as the endpoint. It sounds like you think that being a certain weight represents that endpoint and are hoping that once you're a certain weight you can also have a healthy relationship with food. I think it might be worth figuring out if you might have those two goals in the wrong order.

I can attest to needing a lot of work to get myself out of the "I am good if I eat/exercise in a way that leads to weight loss and bad if I don't" mindset. It's taken about a year for me to recognize that eating foods in healthy balance and enjoying activities that keep me strong and mobile is the real goal. Weight loss is a positive outcome as I find that balance, but not the ultimate goal. I guess you could call it "intuitive living". It's not something that just comes naturally, especially after 47 years of living with less than healthy habits, but it's something that you can move towards with adjustments that won't feel like restrictions after a few weeks.

I have made a lot of adjustments over the past year. I have been intentional about not keeping the ones that felt hard after a trial period. There were times when I had to remind myself "You're getting enough food. It just doesn't feel like enough because you are trying to use it to fill something other than a physical need". There were times when I looked at the amount of food I was eating and realized that I was being too restrictive and needed eat to maintain, not lose for a period of time.

Here's my advice (to be taken with the same skepticism I'm encouraging with the other advice offered):
- Eat the foods you love, in portions that fit your overall calorie goal. As someone who has yogurt with peanut butter protein powder, mini chocolate chips, and an apple pretty much every night around 8pm, it made my heart sad to see you considering giving up yogurt and not eating something after dinner.
- Do exercises that you love. It sounds like there are activities that would get your heart rate up and burn calories that you would enjoy far more than going to the gym. Go with that! Even if they don't burn as many calories. I have a goal of 10,000 steps a day. I jog some of those because I enjoy jogging. If I hated jogging but loved biking, I'd set a goal of biking a certain number of minutes or miles a day. The goal isn't to get me to do something I don't want to do, it's to remind me that I get to do that thing I love.
- Learn to see yourself as more than your weight. I watched a video of myself from a year ago (65lbs heavier) and two things struck me. The first thing to strike me was how heavy I looked. I'll admit to a bit of shame and disgust. Then I remembered that day and how I felt and how I was already on this journey. I'm the same person. I had even started the same healthy habits that I maintain today. I hold no more value today than I did that day. The people in my life who matter love me no more or less than they did that day. The most beautiful thing that has happened in this past year is not fitting into a size 10. It's learning to care for my mind and body in ways that allow me to have the same joyful spirit today as I hope to have when I reach my goal weight. It's that learning that gives me confidence that I will eventually get to and maintain that goal weight, because I get to be happy/successful every day on the way there.

PAV8888

Thank you @frhaberl for articulating so very well both that the goal should not be the weight change directly but to develop lasting processes that lead to the weight change and are compatible with maintenance. And implicitly explaining why it is more than ok and even necessary to both take the time and enjoy the journey.

It is also necessary to be in, at the very least, a sufficiently objectively self managed state such that neurotransmitter and hormonal changes that come with the process of weight loss do not tip us out of the state of objectively sufficient self management.

Aesop101

I've been dieting for years. This year I stopped. I now do meal planning. I do count calories but only as an index of sorts. Being exact is impossible.

My only little morsel of advice is to cut carbs and sugars. Those are the monsters hiding under your bed.