discouraged, gaining weight back, self sabatoge?

Feel free to add me :-)

Awww Sharon, I'm sort of having the same problem...not the night time snacking, but self sabotage. I've not been logging my food hardly at all. I keep telling myself I will do it later, but then never do it. I tell myself a bigger portion will be okay because I deserve it...afterall I've been doing so well these past months.

I'm not sure how we get past this. I guess this is when it really gets hard, we have to get our mentality back where it was when we started. So on that note, let's get back on the bandwagon. We can do this! Remember it's 99% mental.

Sharon, I think I eat at night out of boredom. I have been trying to keep myself busy to avoid that. chloeRichards has some GREAT ideas! You can do this!

Feel free to add me (a fellow 55 year old) for mutual support

Me too, make sure it is all logged.....drives me crackers when I sabotage myself like this

So know the feeling!I've gained back 40 pounds that has taken me years to lose . I've gotten discouraged but now I'm starting over again. Emotional eating is my trigger to gain so I watch it when I'm stressed out. At times, I catch myself other times I don't. You'll do great and lose again!! It's going to be tough but you can do it!! :happy:

Hey! I know what night time binge-a-thons look like so I have a little message on my cabinets and refrigerator that I leave at night that says "you don't need it". Also I get comfortable so that I don't want to get up and do stuff.Surf the web for a while, it will distract you enough to keep your mind from food. Last tip, get rid of the crappy things like Dove (though delicious I don't think it is something to be eaten after 6 pm) and replace them with healthier things like Greek yogurt and granola.

Best of luck and I will add

Robyn

Like others have mentioned and something that has helped me is to not buy the things in the first place. It's easy for me as I live on my own so I don't have other people's eating to keep in mind when I grocery shop. Every so often I will buy a small individual bar of chocolate and keep it in the freezer, a little forced portion control.

Also, it's important to really understand how much you can eat while still being able to lose weight. Many people restrict calories and even certain foods way more than is necessary to lose weight. The over restriction can lead to binges for various reasons, physiological and psychological.

This is a long but very helpful post: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/912920-in-place-of-a-road-map-3-2013

And it's shorter but still very informative version if you're really that pressed for time: http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/975025-in-place-of-a-road-map-short-n-sweet

They both mention weight training or resistance training, but that's more preferential than anything. These methods, if you set your activity level correctly, work perfectly fine for people who would just like to lose weight with diet. If there is something active you love doing, keep doing it and it can also be an alternative activity possibly the next time you feel like overeating if you're stressed or emotional. Find other things to do than eat when you feel upset because eating isn't helping the problem in anyway and it's probably making it worse because it's causing weight gain which is stressful.

Best of luck to you!

Omgosh. What a horrible week. If you look ay my diary it looks ok but its after I post that I start the nighttime snacking that seems to rule me. Its a emotional thing not a hunger. The more I try to stop the more I am doing it. Does anyone out there binge at night like I do? Bought 2 bags of Dove chocolate because they were 2 for 5.00. Thought it would last a very long time but ate it all in 4 days. That's what I do. I know to not buy it, not have it in the house but I think it is going to be different this time.
Just need a little support here.. Very very down up in the middle of the night and am just disgusted with myself.

Late night snacking gets me too sometimes. My biggest struggle is that I tend to eat more at night than earlier in the day. Since I don't eat enough in the first part of the day, by the time I get home at night I'm famished and I over-do it. So I've been trying to eat more earlier in the day and assure I have at least a 150-250 calorie deficit by the end of the day. Sometimes I don't, but lately (for the most part) I do.

Feel free to add me-it's always good to have a supportive network of friends around you.

This is another good thing to point out to. Most research shows that meal timing and frequency are purely preferential when looking at things within a 24 hour day... and even up to a week at a time. I you aren't naturally hungry in the morning, then don't eat and you'll have those cals for a big dinner and some snacks later. If you do get hungry throughout the day, pack small snacks and eat more frequently. Find an eating schedule that works for you and allows you to stick to a caloric deficit, that is the "right" way to eat. The myths of breakfast increasing metabolism as well as the garbage about 6 small meals a day are just that, myths.

Most of my binges were occurring in the evenings... and I was eating breakfast and lunch just because that's what I was "supposed" to do when in all reality I wasn't actually hungry. So I stopped eating breakfast and in most cases unless I'm really active at work during the day, stopped eating anything at all until at least 5pm. And it's allowed me to keep my cals under control and feel satiated with a full and yummy meal for dinner usually followed by ice cream or a piece of chocolate, etc. Dieting doesn't have to be miserable and tasteless. I still eat potatoes and pasta and bacon and red meat in general.

So yeah, find a meal schedule that works for you and find an appropriate calorie goal so that you're still losing but you're not eating so low that you start triggering a binging response.