dilemma, i hate my belly but i love food

melissaann262

I know exactly how you feel. I'm what I call in "active recovery" of bulimia. Food has always been a reward/treat in my family and when stress got really bad I turned to it as comfort and then started bingeing/purging.

I've been able to get my eating under control, but the mental part is just as hard (if not harder!) than the physical fitness stuff. But you can do this! if you make the decision to change YOU CAN DO THIS. you're not alone. :happy:

stbrad6896

I think almost everyone LOVES ice cream and cookies but here's the thing... it's hard to let go of those things when you've allowed yourself to have them for so long, especially when you've used them as a sort of coping mechanism. All that sugar becomes like a drug your body starts to crave it. I had a hard time letting go of the sweets, and for me bread was a big issue, not because of the "carbs" but i guess you could call it one of my "trigger" foods. it's one of those things that I just want to keep eating and eating (like the fresh bread they bring at italian restaurants for example - I could go through 3 baskets and still want more). But I realized these were my problem areas and I had to cut them out for a while. Know your enemy and face it. Chocolate was near impossible for me to avoid so I bought hershey kisses and little things like that and would only eat one or two when I really felt the need to kill a chocolate craving. You could try going that route but it sounds like maybe you can't stop yourself once you start eating your favorite foods? So just try to avoid them altogether and replace them with better things and I promise you this - the cravings WILL become less frequent and go away. Hey just last night my mom baked cookies and I didn't eat a single one! and today I passed up the rolls with my thanksgiving dinner. I know my limits and I gotta say it feels great to say NO when you start seeing and feeling the results you will be so glad you did

footiechick82

As the saying goes nothing tastes as good as skinny feels

Are you really trying to bring on people who bing and purge or just don't eat at all? That is the most RIDICULOUSLY awful thing anyone can EVER say!

Skinny is gross. Fit is sexy. Period.

footiechick82

I really really hate my fat belly. None of my clothes look good, I feel unattractive and dont look or feel too good. I LOVE food though. All of the worst stuff for me too like cookies, donuts, ice cream. I know it is fine to enjoy these in moderation but I just want to eat such large amounts. Not only do I love the taste but eating is also comforting to me as I have depression and anxiety. Sometimes I just think I love food too much to get to my goal but then I look in the mirror and feel like crying about how big my belly has become from eating such large amounts of unhealthy food. Thanks for listening to my vent I guess i just wanted to get that off my chest. happy thanksgiving ya'll

I'm guilty too. I love junk food. However, there are alternatives.

Cookies - grab the "calorie wise" and stick to ONE package - 100 calories.
Donuts - do not go to a coffee shop, you won't eat them. simple, out of site, out of mind
Ice cream - frozen yogurt tastes just the same and is a lot healthier for you

If you need a snack, nutella and a banana, strawberries. Have 1 tblsp and it will hit that sweet tooth and will keep you satisfied for a while. Snack on nuts. Try yogurt and berries. If it's vanilla yogurt, it's still sweet and the barries will also help with that tinge of sweetness. If I'm having a serious craving, I will have everything in site to try to get rid of the craving that is healthy. If that doesn't work, by that time, I'm almost too full to have what I originally wanted or "sweetned out" so I might have a bite or two and feel satisfied.

Trying to trick the mind is hard. I get this big time when I'm about to have my time of the month. Nothing works and I want to eat everything. If you start to do some walking and eventually get up to jogging and getting some exercise, this will help with the cravings. You will see the results and be like "oh yeah, I don't need to eat that whole chocolate bar. I will have a piece and satisfy my craving and keep lookin' this good!"

try it.

kalch

i was a hamburger or two a week guy.. Chowed down on pizza, ate cake, soda (or pop here in canada), fries,fried food. It was an addiction. I used to do a "which hamburger joint in the city has the best one" and buy two or three. I also did a "who has the best veal sandwich", and I'd eat them all in one sitting. No more.

This will be a slow process to stop eating all this stuff.

I was just at my nutritionist today and said to him the hardest part of this whole transition thing is changing the food and eating behaviour! We discussed things like how to snack better, how to eat for working out. Etc.

So, my suggestion is this.... Like a drug, instead of eating those bad things all the time, make a concerted effort to eliminate just ONE of the bad meals a week with a healthy meal. The next week, try to do it twice, and substitute the second bad meal with another healthy meal. It may take a while, but maybe you can get down to just one day where you free feed. If you can cut your calories in the first few weeks by calories per week, you're on your way. Go for a walk a day, or just get up and move more than you do now. This is going to be both a physical and emotional/psychological challenge for you to overcome, but trust me, if i can get off the burger, bread and slop, so can you. I miss my hamburgers and havent had one in months. But don't tell anyone, I'm probably going to have a burger tonight before The Who concert downtown with my buddies.

Rocbola

You don't have to eat LESS, you just have to eat RIGHT. If you have fruit when you are craving sweets, instead of a high-calorie density sweet foods like donuts and ice cream, you can eat to your full satisfaction, and not overeat.

Sparlingo

You know what helped me? Just tracking. Start tracking honestly. When you see that you have 300 calories left for the day, and you could have a real meal or two cookies, you'll choose the meal if you're hungry enough. Also, when you start seeing even slight movement on the scale, the change in how you feel will start to become more of a reward than the treats were. Also, looking back at my food log, I feel good about seeing more fruits and vegetables and fewer packaged items. I don't think I had any real concept of how much I ate or how poorly until I started to track.

No foods are off limits for me, but I do find I make better choices more often now that eating takes more conscious effort and planning. I love bread - now I have about a slice a week instead of a loaf a week :blushing: Also, knowing that I could rework my day to include treats if I really wanted one helps a lot. I don't need that chocolate bar today... but I could have it tomorrow if I wanted, I would just have to work out a little harder, or make some sacrifices elsewhere with my food.

Take it one day at a time! And if you're not ready to make sacrifices yet, try an experiment: Eat what you're going to eat, but just track it using myfitnesspal. See if at the end of a week or two you're making any different choices.

Make some friends, too -- I noticed I would think of my "audience" before I grabbed a treat, and wondered if I'd enjoy someone reading that on my log. It takes the secrecy out of secretive eating if you commit to logging it!!