MFP side effects. Dieting is stressful (obvious fact).

serenere

I've started to lose weight last year, when I moved out of my parent's house. I won't be long about that, I'll just quick recap and say that I've never be obese but a bit overweight for most of my childhood and teen years. I knew that I needed to do something about my nutrition sooner or later (sport wasn't really an issue because I've always been quite active) but I kinda postponed it again and again.

Something clicked inside of my after my longtime BF broke up with me and I've decided to lose the extra weight once and for all. First I just tried to avoid fat food and do more exercise. I lost some considerable amount of weight but I felt that wasn't quite right doing it that way so I tried to get informed and a fitness trainer told me about MFP.

It's been a month now that I log my exercises and my food, weighting everything. I love the support I get from my pals here is so inspiring and reassuring. It's good to have people with you so you won't feel alone in this journey. But I have to say, MFP has some nasty side effects.

First, I'm becoming obsessed by weighting everything. I feel that my calculations aren't right, I double check each food in the database and so on...today I went crazy because I couldn't find the nutritional values on a pack of pita and they weren't in the database...

Second, I've become more judgmental towards myself. When I was trying to lose weight without counting calories and I've started to see results, I was under some boost of self-esteem and I felt energetic and beautiful. Now I seem to only look at the parts of my body where I still have body fat to lose and things that I need to work on. I guess sometimes ignorance really is a blessing!

My mood is been up and down lately, I guess I'm starting to feel the stress of being on a diet. I don't have much weight left to lose but just because of that the process is so slow and tiring. Not seeing quick results anymore it's getting harder and harder...Working out does help, and also having a treat once in a while, but I feel I need more opinions to see things from different perspectives.

Do you experienced people on a diet have some nice tip to boost one's self esteem during the stressing times of a diet? Where do you find your strength?

cjs3001

That seems to be a classic losing weight response. For a lot of us, if we are over-eaters we were obsessed with food and now obsessed with the control. So many people will have been so easy with themselves that now they get a bit of structure you see so many that will go "But I don't know HOW to eat over 1000 calories, I'm sooooo full" when, ultimately, it's going to be a bit of a lie. To be successful you do need to be strict, that's pretty much a given but when it is damaging to your well-being you need to figure out the balance. Everyone works it out differently but try and get back to that positive frame of mind. Maybe if it means don't weigh yourself so often and just try and work on your body changes, etc. If you don't have much to lose you're going to be annoyed at slow progress so maybe just try and focus on other things. I know it's hard but like you said, you've done it before so I'm sure you can get back there again x

serenere

Thanks for your answer, actually I did a lot of self reflecting these days...I was struck by lightening.

Tomorrow is gonna be my weekly weight-in. I'm trying to prepare myself mentally not to see any difference on the scale (because I have my period now) but I won't guarantee my heart won't drop if I see I gained. ç__ç

After 1 month of serious calories counting I think I'm going through my first real crisis. My cravings for junk food are going out of control and yesterday at the gym I burst into tears for no reason. It's kinda tough but it also made me open my eyes about something: I am a food addict.

All this time I've been overweight I was obviously lying to myself thinking that I could have dropped the weight anytime I wanted. The first time I tried to do it for real my shortcomings are showing up. I am an addict. I was never obese because I've always been very active but I AM an addict.

Every moment of my life was revolving around food. I used to woke up thinking about what I was going to eat during the day. I felt depressed if one dinner out were postponed, not because of my social life, but because of the food. And the list is very long...I am shocked that I just realized that TODAY. I am an addict. Now I'm becoming a control freak about calories and this is not good at all. Replacing one obsession with another....as you said.

I need to focus more on other goals and not concentrate all my thoughts and energies on my weight loss. After tomorrow weight-in I'll try to wait at least 2 weeks before I weight myself again and maybe one day I'll have the strength to give up on the scale completely...O__o but now I'm very scared of loosing control.

I'll work on it...hoping for more relaxed days thanks so much for the support

ozigal

My opinion - for what it's worth...

"Diet = Failure"

Now let me explain why... Going on a "diet" suggests there is an end but most of us got the way we are because our lifestyles were unhealthy. Simply put, we ate the wrong things and we weren't active enough. Success is about changing our lifestyle to something healthier. A plain old fashioned "diet" where you go back to eating the same rubbish you alway ate wont do that and you will end up yo-yoing.

I see MFP as a tool to help me understand what I should be doing and to help me change my lifestyle to something healthier. Since I started doing this, I have begun to realise how much I didnt know about nutrition, moderation, exercise, the importance of being active. I'm far from stupid but it seems to me that there was a gap in my education and I'm just learning about it now.

Being obsessed with MFP at the beginning is normal - I've logged into this thing for 285 days in a row and not all of them were good days. AS long as you learn to take responsibility for what you consume, you do it in moderation and you understand the nutritional values of things so that you can balance it out elsewhere, you will be fine.

Don't stress because you think you can't eat pizza or chocolate or McDonalds. There is no reason why you can't. Just learn how to eat it in moderation and be active enough to cover the calories of what you consume.

In the last 10 months I have learned so much that I never knew (and never cared about) because of MFP. I've also made some pretty good friends but most importantly I have changed my life around. I'm slimmer, I'm fitter, I'm more active and I am much much happier because I took the time to use MFP (and Fitbit) to understand how my body works.

serenere

thank you for the comments I'll try to concentrate more on the life changing experience and less on the calories counting I am still afraid of these high calories food (I don't trust myself to be moderate) but I'm getting there.