Complete failure.

The first thing you need to remember is that this isn't a diet. Diets get you nowhere. This is a change in your lifestyle, to be healthier
I think that kind of thinking will help improve your late night cravings, because with a diet, comes restriction. But with a lifestyle change, you're allowed to give yourself something unhealthy every once in a while if you want it.
And exercise more, exercise burns more calories and the more calories you burn the more food you can eat. Don't go using food as a reward, but if you decide you want pizza one night, exercise more to make it fit into your calories.

But I think the most important thing is to not deprive yourself. You don't want to feel restricted, because that will lead to problems. If I hand you a piece of cake and tell you not to eat it, it's going to be harder to resist than if I hand you two pieces of cake and tell you to only eat one.
You can have anything you want in moderation. And I think just simply knowing that this isn't a diet, but a whole change in the way you live, it'll be easier on you

Great idea!

Make yourself log your calories you are about to eat BEFORE you eat them.

Maybe logging 10 nuggets that are 1220 calories and 4680mg of sodium without the dipping sauce will spoil your appetite.

This has helped me several times. I see it in black and white and its just not worth it.

Also, try to find something to do with your hands. If you are sitting there watching tv, old habits are usually that you were eating something, maybe do a crossword puzzle or Soduko, knitting, etc. Also try to chew gum.

I know exactly what you are talking about and I've been there! I remember driving home from work and stopping to get a personal pan pizza to eat in the car then try to hide the pizza box from my husband (in the back seat of the car, he always found it) so he didn't know what a complete mess I was with food. Until about 2 weeks ago I was still craving all these foods that I've always eaten and that have made it difficult for me to lose weight. I don't know what happened, but I made the decision to start small... you don't want to cut everything out or it will probably never work. I took it hour by hour (sort of like people who quit smoking do) and told myself I didn't need a soda right now that I would drink some water and if I still wanted it then I would get one. Then I'd get a craving for Dairy Queen at night and I decided to cut back on that too. I think that when you take it slow it makes a real difference in your thinking. I haven't had a soda in 13 days and haven't had cheese in 11. Those were my two main problems as far as daily eating habits so that's a huge change for me. If I have any advice it's just to slow down on what you're doing initially, do not stop cold turkey because you'll just be wanting what you are "not allowed" to have. Hope that helps!

Make yourself small portions and eat 6-7 times instead of 3 big meals. Instead of the BK run grab some fruit. 1200 cals is low and if you have 1400 it may take an extra week to lose that pound but you won't have those cravings so bad. You will always have cravings for fastfood until your body adjusts to the new foods you are eating. I used to eat fast food 2 sometimes 3 times a day when i was on the road. Now i can eat it once a month and that is to much for me. Just don't beat yourself up about it just work on it slowly. Everything takes time... Just remeber in your head when BK calls go grab a frozen banana or some strawberries. More then likely that craving will go away

First, stop restricting and dieting and get the book "The Beck Diet Solution". It's a cognative behavioral therapy approach to weight issues. It helps you learn your sabotaging thoughts and triggers to over eating and helps you respond to urges to eat for reasons other than hunger. It also can help you accept that hunger is not an emergency.

In the book, the author actually encourages the reader to NOT start dieting until after 2 weeks of exercises. I've been going through it periodically over the past year and it's helped me lose what I've lost and not gain it all back when I hit rough patches emotionally.

If you get the book and work through the exercises honestly and with an open mind, you might see some success.

Other than that, in November/December when I was self sabotaging, I chose to set my calorie goal to maintenance and aimed every day to just stay under maintenance calories and to eat only when I was hungry and stop when I started getting full. This freed me up from thinking about "I can't have XYZ" and helped me stop focusing so much on food. As I felt stronger, I changed my goal to 1 lb per week loss goal and now it's set at 1 1/2 pounds per week.

There have been a couple of Bible verses that have helped me with respect to food....one is "come to terms with your enemy", the other is "love your enemy". While you are feeling that your enemy is food you are setting yourself up to fail. It is possible to love food, respect it, learn about it, experiment with flavours, nourish your body with life giving food.....think about it a lot, thats ok. Think about why we need food....what does certain food do to our bodies.......eg find out why sugar rots your teeth......(it has to do with calciu being leached from our teeth and bones in order to process what is basically a poison). Spend time making your meals, finding the right ingredients, knnowing its composition and nutritious value.......This is the simplest thing you can do.....learn to love good food......never get too hungry....but choose life giving food, and expose junk food for what it is....basically poison...next time you want a burger. make one, throw away the top even and have a sumptious open burger with fresh salads, choice meat, fish, chicken or vege burger, beetroot, chutney etc. You can make delicious oven baked fries, yoghurt tahini dips......there are endless sources of nutritious reccipes available. I do not have cravings for junk food and now I will often bypass eating something to wait till I get home to make something twice as yummy, much more nutritious, and a lot more satisfying. I also find that the more raw food I eat with nuts and good oils, the less I need of other food. Hope this helps! I am not on a diet, I have just changed my diet......I also agree with bluefrog_2001 log your calories before you eat them......this is very helpful.

I don't want to sound whiny or like I'm just making a post for attention. I've had problems with this for so long and I am at my breaking point.

I am mentally addicted to food. That's the only conclusion that I can come to. When I'm dieting, all I can think of is all of the food I'm not eating. I'll do okay during the day and for dinner. But then at night as I'm reading or blogging, I can't stop myself. Lastnight, I drove to Burger King at midnight and got a large order of cheesy tots and a 10 piece nugget. With a Coke. Not diet. WTF?! I had already eaten dinner. I had already had my calorie intake for the day, maybe even a little over. But I couldn't stop thinking of them and wasn't satisfied until I had them.

I do this often and everytime, I find an excuse to start tomorrow but tomorrow comes and it's the same. I HATE the way I look and feel. It's all I think about everyday. Everytime I see someone healthy. Everytime I see jeans I'll never fit in. Everytime I see the way my friends and family look at me because I was never overweight until I got pregnant.

I've been on mfp for over a year. My logs are very sporadic because I never stick with it. I want to stick with it this time. I HAVE to stick with it this time. I turn 30 March 26th and tons of my friends/family/people I haven't seen in a while will be there. I want to atleast shed a few before then.

HELP!

I know this may sound harsh, but the first thing is you must admit you can stop yourself. You are the only person enabling yourself to get in your car and drive to burger king.

There is a process called the 4 steps that you may find useful. It is often used for relapse prevention.

Step 1: Thoughts and feelings. You write down all your initial thoughts about why you want food e.g. I'm hungry, I'm bored, Burger King is my favourite etc.

Step 2: Justification. Now write down how you convince yourself it is okay to get Burger King e.g. I've been so good. No one will know. It's just this once etc.

Step 3: Creating the opportunity. Now think about how you create the opportunity to get Burger King e.g. Staying up late. Eating too little in the day. Having the car keys beside you etc.

Step 4: Overcoming obstacles. These are practical problems that could prevent you getting burger king that you have to overcome e.g. Buying gas for your car. Not having the money. Not waking partner/housemates.

The reason they're called steps is that they are set out like steps with 1 at the bottom and 4 at the top.

Now you have done this you have to look at each step and realise that you can 'jump off' at any step and break the habit. The earlier you jump off the better it is, but it can be done at any step. The way you do this is you create 'new me' thinking to counteract the thoughts, feelings and actions that lead to getting Burger King e.g. old me: I'm hungry new me: but I have recorded everything on MFP and I am at my calorie limit. Old me: It's just this once. New me: But it isn't once I have done this many times before. Old me: Staying up late. New me: have a scheduled sleep time. Old me: Not having money. New me: have a chart of the money you have spent on each visit/in a week or month on fast food and what you are going to spend that money on instead.

This should help you break down the process and realise that what many term an uncontrollable impulse is in fact a series of very small and distinct steps that can be interrupted to prevent you returning to the negative behaviour.

Please message me if something isn't clear.