Rewiring what I've always known!

AaronSeekings

Morning All,

So I downloaded My Fitness Pal last night ready to start a fresh with my weight loss journey. For many years (from childhood) I've always been taught to see food as "good" and "bad" I've been surrounded and taken part of diet plans such as slimming world which have been successful (lost 9st) however they haven't been sustainable I've put on 8st of the 9st lost. So I wanted to introduce myself and ask what would be your best advice to rewiring my current thoughts on food to help me prosper and help achieve my goals?

Speak soon 😀

Aaron

totameafox

Food is fuel. The only way a 'diet' can work is if it puts you in a calorie deficit. Find a way of eating and exercising that you can sustain. Keep a food log and weigh your food. You have so many calorie that you can spend during the day. You get to decide what to do with it.

AnnPT77

The best way to change thoughts and mindset? Not going to mince words: Therapy.

That's not the only solution, particularly if the problems aren't severe so might be changeable with self-help approaches . . . but there should be no stigma or hesitation in consulting a professional in difficult cases. Just like we call a plumber for leaky-pipe problems we can't fix on our own, we should call a therapist for dysfunctional-thought-pattern problems we can't fix on our own. That's why those professionals exist.

I admit I haven't used it, but a resource some here have recommended is a book called "The Beck Diet Solution". It isn't "a diet", it's a book that teaches readers how to apply cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) techniques themselves to eating-related issues.

At a more simplistic level, you might find that simply logging your food consistently here on MFP - if that's not something you've done before - may help with your thought patterns. It did help me. Once I saw what certain foods "cost" in calorie terms, I was willing to eat them in smaller portions or less frequently in order to be healthier and feel better. That won't be enough for everyone, but it may still be a help.

(To me, the WW points or Slimming World syns aren't the same concept: I think the way they assign points/syns sort of reinforces that "good foods/bad foods" thinking. Calories and nutrients are neutral. Grilled chicken, a Big Mac, cottage cheese, beer, an apple, candy bars - they all have calories, and they all have or lack nutrients and filling power for those calories. Calorie counting is like a game where we work on balancing all of that out - including other factors like joy in eating, affordability, etc. - across a whole way of eating, rather than avoiding the "bad" and eating only the "good" individual foods.)

You mention losing and then regaining, and you mention Slimming World as a method involved in losing for you. That's not definitive, so this next part may not be applicable to you. If that's true, ignore it.

IMO, one of the common things that leads to loss then regain is exclusively picking a plan for loss that isn't something a person wants to stick with permanently. It's a key success factor to pick an individually suitable, personalized approach.

Exactly what that is will differ from one person to the next because we're each unique people with our own preferences, strengths, limitations, and lifestyles. Finding the right personal approach is a process of experimenting to find those right tactics, then practicing the useful ones until they're pretty much on autopilot.

Along the way, we'll try some things that don't work, and there may be off days as a consequence. That's not "failing", it's learning. So no need to catastrophize about something that doesn't work, just cross it off the list and try something else, repeat until the right tactics fall into place. As long as you keep working at it, eventually they will. It's like a fun, productive science fair experiment for grown-ups, and the prize at the end is good health and appearance.

IMO, "find new, better, reasonably happy permanent habits" is a completely different mindset from "lose weight", let alone from "lose weight fast so I can go back to normal". When I started losing weight with MFP, I decided I wasn't going to do anything to lose weight that I wasn't willing to continue long term to stay at a healthy weight, except for a sensibly moderate calorie deficit until I got to a good body weight. All I needed to do at that good weight was add some extra calories daily to stabilize my weight, and keep going with the same eating and activity habits I'd been practicing and following for months.

That transition was easy, and has worked out really well for me - I'm in year 9+ of maintaining a healthy weight, after around 30 years of overweight/obesity. Making a long-term-sustainable plan during weight loss made this work for me. YMMV.

No matter your path forward, I wish you success!