Sabotaging myself

I think you need to seek professional help. You have some things you need to work through that you probably don't want to air on a public forum. No shame in seeking a psychologist. Just do your research as with any Drs some are good and some are bad.

Girl, I'm in the same boat. EVERY SINGLE TIME, I sabotage myself. I have learned over the years & through my many Psychology classes, that I have an obsessive compulsive personality disorder. I also have a touch of ADHD. Once I realized what my triggers were, I was better able to control it -- not completely, I still haven't figured that out -- but to an extent, which has been helpful. Not going into my whole life story here, but I have felt unworthy of success, which is why I sabotage myself. Take some time & do some soul searching & find out what triggers you. The poster above me is right, it very well could be pyschological. Talk to some people you trust & take a step back & try to look at your life as an outsider -- it honestly helps.

This is what I used to be like, would lose some then boom...there it came back because of a streak of bad choices. It really comes down to how bad you want it!!...I said to a person one time its like if there was a million dollars for you if you lose a specific amount of weight..would you do it?...of course cause thats an incentive...in this case the incentive is looking better and feeling better and being healthy and happy. There wouldn't be these kinda posts because you'd be motivated and hungry to keep going. I wanted to be an all around better athlete as I was when I was younger...lots have those aspirations but I found a place in my mind where I could make it happen. You need to find your motivation ...boring workouts can make people lack, if thats the case find something you enjoy doing. Remember you have to enjoy this and not make it a monotonous thing and after that happens everything else will fall into place

As far as the eating to punish yourself, well maybe you are however everybody gotta eat and its quite common to turn a craving for a food into a time span of eating bad. You've made a step with this post, it means you want it to change and thats a good thing. Now you need to find it within yourself to be strong and dig deep and take control. You will have lots of great advice, lots of positive comments and support here and some negative sprinkled in there as well. Thing is, this starts with you and only you...take it over and own it

I think a lot of people do that. I would make sure to really analyze your "why", though: because if it really is PUNISHING yourself, like you actively are trying to hurt your body, then you do need some kind of psychiatric help.

If you're like most people though, sabatoging yourself is more or less just giving up will power, rationalizing your bad habits. It's telling yourself stuff like: "I had one, I'd might as well have another, it's not THAT bad", "I deserve it after all the weight I lost already", "Being skinny isn't THAT important, I need to enjoy food SOMETIMES", or "I'm just going to pig out tonight because I'm stressed out, but tomorrow I'm back to counting calories!"

So if it's the latter, then you just need to force yourself to have stronger will power. The more you do it the easier it will become. And then it's a lifelong thing you need to endure to the end, and THAT'S how you EARN being skinny. If it were easy, everyone would be skinny. It's just really hard. Especially if you're only slightly heavier than you'd like to be- our bodies aren't made to be rock-solid & super skinny (look at art from the history of mankind), so unless you're seriously killing it every day on workouts and perfect food, your body is always trying to sit at a comfortable weight (usually about 10-15 pounds more than most women hope to be according to today's society's expectations).

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The sabotaging tends to only happen after I've blown the diet and am damn disappointed in myself for having done so.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ here we go!! start here.^^^^^^

try try try!!! set your day up with what you plan to eat for each meal.... and do you damn best to stick to it! one day at a time. I would love to be of support to you, add me if you want it!

I am in the exact same boat! back on track today, but had a bad week!! I don't know why I do it though!!!

Try to make the time for some exercise that you enjoy (or at least, don't hate). There are more benefits to this than just for helping with weight loss. For me, the BIGGEST benefit of getting some exercise, has been that it helps reduce my stress level... which in turn, makes me less likely to eat crap to comfort myself.

Vicious circles can go either way - I prefer this type. You can do this!

Look, I'm not a Dr(or at least THAT type of Dr) so I can't nor won't diagnose you, however, you do need to understand there aren't any magic words to be spoken to give you motivation to WANT to do this. YOU have to just do it. You either do, or you don't. It really is that simple. What helps is to look at this as a marathon, not a sprint, ignore your scale, don't beat yourself up after every slip up and just keep at it.

I have this exact same problem. I also struggle with some OCD-type behaviors and anxiety, and it is difficult to learn coping strategies that don't involve food or self-medicating. Right now I find that I am most successful if I plan my food in advance each day, with "rewards" built in. For example, once a week I get to go out for fast food. I know what day it is going happen, so I can plan for it without going over my goal and feeling disappointed in myself. I know using food to reward myself is not ideal, but planning little splurges into my week seems to reduce the need to have a major binge. Also, if I plan in some "naughty" foods, I don't feel as deprived. As I get close to my goal, I am working on slowly changing behaviors (more vegetables, less frozen pizza) to get used to a healthier lifestyle.

The other thing is what someone else mentioned--try to recognize your triggers and when you realize one has occurred, reach out to someone to distract yourself. For me, not meeting some other goal (even a minor one, like realizing I forget to send someone a birthday card or having a basket of unfolded laundry sitting on the couch when a friend stops over on laundry day) can trigger a feeling of inadequacy, which leads to a disastrous binge (5-6,000 calories) that can undo weeks of 500 calorie deficits. The binge then makes me feel like even more of a failure, so it doesn't matter if I stick to my diet.

I have abandoned many diets that way in the past. However, this time I really believe that if I follow the plan, it will work. I also believe that I can stick to the plan. When I feel a trigger, I reach out to my family or friends for support. It really helps that several family members and friends have joined to support me--that alone reminds me people love me whether I’m perfect or not and want me to be healthy. If I do go over my calories, which does happen about once a week, I tell myself "you do not have to be perfect. It is OK to fall short of your goal once in a while." Then I forgive myself for failing and start over. If possible, I try to exercise my extra calories away, and if not, then I just tell myself "today you were not perfect. But you have a clean slate again tomorrow and you can do better."

Please do not give up. There may be some unresolved issues that are making you sabotage yourself, but in the end you have to decide that you do not have to be perfect and you deserve to be happy anyways, even if you sometimes screw things up. The fact that you are trying to figure out why your behaviors happen is the first step towards understanding and resolving them. If you feel like you need to seek professional help I would encourage you to do so, but I think the feelings you describe are pretty typical experiences for people who are struggling to change life-long behaviors and not evidence that you have a psychological problem. Change is hard, but you are worth it!

Thank you to you and the responder right before you. Not that I don't appreciate the other comments, I do, but we all had issues that either lead to the weight gain or the inability to lose it easily. That's why we're here. To say that my issues are psychological but yours (or whom evers) are not, seems a bit, well wrong. But I do acknowledge I too have some OCD and that same "touch" of ADHD. I was taking Adderall for awhile but got off of it and use herbal supplements to try and cope since my case was mild. But I've had these issues long before, or after, the meds. As for what my triggers are, I think it's changed as life has, but there's always something (again- true for most everyone) that's a trigger. Maybe at first it was all the college (11 years and 3 degress to be exact!) or now it's having a family or a business that are both inevitably imperfect. The goal though is to find a mechanism other than food to cope with the stress of whatever maybe happening. The sabotaging tends to only happen after I've blown the diet and am damn disappointed in myself for having done so. I like the idea of keeping that photo nearby as a reminder to get back on the wagon, even if I've fallen off. Trying to keep the image mentally sometimes becomes difficult when images of tasty cupcakes or special edition fall hard cider beer is dancing through my head! Lol

Feel free to send me a friend request if you would like. I know my issues are due to my parents divorce -- which was HORRIBLE & I was only 7. The VERY LAST words my dad said to me before he walked out of the house & didn't come home until telling me that he & mom were divorcing were at the dinner table & he yelled at me for chewing with my mouth open. That's when it started. I was almost 30 years old & had my own children before I finally came to terms with the fact that their divorce was NOT my fault. Sad, isn't it? What we do to ourselves & how we continue to beat ourselves up over things out of our control. After my daughter was born, I went an entire month without a bite to eat because I couldn't cope with postpartum depression & it was causing problems in my marriage. If a psychologist ever got hold of me & all my issues, I'd be an entire case study relating to food & emotions. Like another poster mentioned, write EVERYTHING down. That's what I have started doing this time around & it really is an eye opener. I log it in on my food & exercise journals for the day so I can try to see how things correlate. At the end of my first month, I printed it out, had someone look through it with me so there would be an objective eye there and not my own critical eye. It really helped to see why I was making some of the bad choices I made over the last month.

I have done this over and over and it is terrible for me. I have been trying to find a healthy relationship with food, find things that fill me up AND satisfy me (not always easy), and learning to forgive myself for my "sins" (i.e. chocolate, ice cream, etc). I am trying to learn how to eat to live. I'm trying not to be so concerned about losing the weight fast (this one is tough!), but learning new habits. I've been maintaining for 6-7 months and that is amazing! I've never done that before...it was always a cycle! Yes, I'd love to lose, but I'm truly focusing on health and being able to maintain healthy habits. I'm changing the way I think about food and how I eat - finding what works for my body. I am not cutting out entire food groups, just limiting. It is a miracle (to me) that I'm able to do this because I never thought I could. I'm proud of myself. Positive thinking and not punishing yourself goes a long way. Would you treat a friend the way you treat yourself (probably not), so I try to encourage myself the way I would a friend. It works...I respond much better to positivity... :-)