I always find excuses :(

You've done really well! You don't need to stop eating the foods you enjoy, learn to have them in moderation and that way you will even enjoy them more than you did before!

I think treats are important, especially chocolate! Just factor it in to your intake and then you don't need to feel guilty. I adore Old Jamaica chocolate, so if at the end of the day I have some calories to spare I will have a couple of pieces - I think this works much better. Otherwise I would not have any for days and then not be able to stop my craving and binge instead. Good luck. :happy:

Someone told me this once.

The only thing standing between you and your goal is the bullsh*t story you keep telling yourself as to why you can't achieve it.”
― Jordan Belfort

Buy one with the SOLE PURPOSE of not eating it until a certain day, 3 or 4 days away. Then you will have conquered it and know that it has no immediate hold on you.

I'll tell you what worked for me, and it might not work for everyone. The first thing I did was to stop feeling guilty. Stop beating myself up. If I overate, I overate, or if I ate chocolate or whatever, then so be it. It doesn't make me a horrible person. It's really hard, but I think removing guilt and shame from food and eating is really important. I think a lot of us get into the mindset that if we stop feeling guilty, we will never lose the weight. For me, it turned out that the opposite was true. When I stopped feeling guilty and ashamed, and started feeling more positively towards myself, that was when I was finally able to lose the weight.

It also helped to stop polarising food as "good" or "bad". It's just food. Yes, you might have good reasons to cut down on a particular type of food, but I think it helps to keep things in perspective. No one food makes anybody fat, and no one food is going to kill you (barring specific medical conditions, allergies, poisoning or choking incidents). Habits take a long time to form, and it's ok to make small, gradual changes.

After letting go of the guilt, the second thing I started working on was breaking the association between food and rewards. It's something that a lot of us grow up with but it's obviously very counter-productive to a healthy lifestyle. Think of other ways of rewarding yourself, try and think of lots of ways, and have them easily available. Your mind will probably automatically turn to food for a long time, but practise ignoring that instinct and using something else as a reward. I personally have the opinion that using food as celebration is not always bad; we have evolved to find food as extremely pleasurable, and it is an important part of all cultures. If you are an emotional eater though, it can be difficult to work out where your own personal boundaries are between enjoying food and using it to get through life.

Looking at your excuses in your OP, I would say it's ok to eat chocolate because you enjoy the taste of it. (It's also ok to remove that from your life if you so choose). You can enjoy the taste with a small portion though. It's ok to enjoy some birthday cake, or a special meal for your boyfriend's birthday - it's not ok to use it as an excuse to binge though. The other things: "I will lose the weight later", "I've not made much progress anyway" - they are the types of excuse you need to knock on the head. Whatever your goals - to achieve a certain weight, to lose inches, to feel like you're eating healthy; if these really matter to you, then you need to learn not to listen to your own excuses. Excuses will always be there, and motivation won't; you have to find the commitment and determination to keep going anyway.

At the risk of going all "Oprah" on you, if you really find it hard to stop using food to make yourself feel better, you might need to look a bit deeper at the feelings you're avoiding or soothing with food.

Some other excuses I have recently used:

-It's my boyfriend's birthday party, I can eat whatever I want

Try not to use this one, there's always some event to justify and it just leads to binging.
It's still his birthday and you'll enjoy yourself fine without going nuts.
On the other hand 1 small slice of cake per month isn't going to derail you.
But you know the event is coming up so make a rule, if you've had sweet stuff the past 2 weeks you can't have any on his birthday.

-Food makes me happy

It'll make you very sad if you get on the scale and have put on weight.
Try and think longer term, the next few days even.

-I love the taste of chocolate (but always feel guilty after eating it)

Tough one! It is good!
Just try and remember how bad you're gonna feel on the scale.
If you can make it a once a month treat if you've honestly been good, then have a *small* bar.

-I will lose the weight later

No you won't, you'll cave again with another excuse.
There is no later.

-I haven't made much progress anyway

You'll make even less or even go up in weight if you cave.
Besides, you lost an inch on your waist in 5 weeks. That's good!


If I start to crave something I sternly give myself these answers in my head and tell myself to think how much better my life is going to be in the future if I don't have it.
Then I do something else to take my mind off it.