Maybe I dont want this.....

When I first joined I had someone on here tell me I was not ready. It was a slap in the face and I hated it. So I wanted to show her I was ready. That was well over 2 years ago. The only reason I am not at my goal weight is that I had some health issues and brain surgery that followed. I don't really care about the number anymore. My clothes fit well (actually most of them are getting to be too big again) and I am happy with the way I look. Don't let yourself get in the way. You can stop making excuses anytime.

Tommorow is a new day............

I can definitely relate! I've been where you are; having the best intentions, but then having them go to the wayside with emotional eating! But you can do this! I've had an account here for well over 2 years, with many starts and stops (and a baby), and I think what has made the difference this time around is not setting myself up with goals that were unrealistic at the beginning.

I wanted to do it all at once. Boom! Diet changed, exercising 5 days a week, in the morning, after work. I was basically setting myself up for failure, with goals and intentions that weren't realistic for me. I recommend starting small, with manageable goals. Just get active doing anything, walking, running, anything. Slowly begin to change your diet with healthier choices. This is not to say eliminate everything you love, but try and portion it out, and make it work into your calorie goal.

But you CAN DO IT! Good Luck, and stay persistent!

So sorry to hear that you are feeling this way. I was like this when it came to weight loss for many years. I saw a couple of different dieticians even and they both gave me sound advice, but I didn't want to hear it at the time. I felt like people were breathing down my back to lose weight. It was overwhelming for me and I blew it off.
I have to ask though... Why have you started to binge eat after being slim for so many years??? What is it that has brought about this change in your life? I have struggled with weight issues since I was in junior high and didn't feel like it was important enough for me to put time into me, but I have found that if I don't take care of myself I can't be there to help others. When my grandson was born in December of last year, I really decided that it was time for a change so I could be a "cool, fun grandma"! He's my motivation!
So I would say to you, it's time to figure out why you have changed and then figure out what your motivation is. Good luck!

I have found that once I am "good" for a few days, I feel like i can do it and then i keep going. Starting for me is tough but once i get going, i'm gone. Maybe it's a confidence thing, but tomorrow IS another day. Try logging everything ahead of time, or log as you go. You might be more reluctant to eat that 2nd or 3rd donut once you see how many calories they take up!

bump for the mayo clinic article

one thing i have learned in 301 days of MFP is that you have to be in the right headspace to lose weight. You sound to me like you're still eating (overeating in some cases) because of another reason. For me, I stopped caring about myself when I was depressed. As I healed mentally, I started to treat myself differently and one day I simply woke up, found MFP and started. Hadn't really even been thinking about dieting, just all clicked together one morning in bed.

Since that day, it's not been that tough. I have my moments but I've never felt deprived or challenged or anything. It was time.

If it's time for you you'll be able to stop but it sounds to me like you perhaps have a couple of other things to look at first to explain why you can eat so much, and why you have put on weight. It's not that you're 'broken' just that something isn't aligned for you right now.

Something will click when you are ready, whether you know what that something is or not. In the mean time..........NEVER.GIVE.UP.

I have been there. You know what you need to do, but putting it into practise is so tough sometimes. Different approaches will work for different people. From what I have read some people on here seem to use the whole "i'm embarrassed in myself" to fuel them, but that never worked for me at all. I had no reason to be embarrassed I just held a bit of extra weight. There are worse things to be in life. Once I worked on my self esteem and mental health the easier it became to eat right and the easier it became to get out the house and exercise. It helped me to appreciate myself at a larger size rather than berate myself, wear nice clothes whatever my size and take pride in my appearance. It might help to speak to someone like a therapist or doctor if you feel you need to.

This book may or may not be helpful:
http://psychcentral.com/lib/book-review-brain-over-binge/0005848

Review of Kathryn Hansen's Brain Over Binge. Here's an excerpt from the review:

Jack Trimpey’s book Rational Recovery: The New Cure for Substance Addiction gave Hansen the tools she needed for her recovery. She learned that her urges to binge came from her subcortex or “lower brain,” the seat of her survival instinct. Kicked into high gear by her anorexia and by excessive exercise, her lower brain reacted to the threat of starvation by signaling her to eat even when food was plentiful. The more Hansen gratified that urge, the more it became a habit, literally changing the neural pathways in her brain and giving rise to her “binge-created brain-wiring problem.”

She compares her lower brain’s signals to a child throwing a tantrum to get a toy. Giving in to the child’s demands reinforces the tantrum. The tantrum can then be practiced in additional situations; once rewarded, it becomes linked with those situations. In this way, the “triggers” for Hansen’s binges kept multiplying; but they were only associations. The true cause of Hansen’s binges had always been the urge to binge itself.

Trying to substitute her binges with other activities had failed, in the same way that responding to a tantrum with a hug fails if the child really wants a toy. Hansen’s tantrums — her lower brain’s signals to binge — succeeded only because she paid attention to them. Her attention led to increased neural firing, which in turn strengthened that pathway in her brain and literally fed her habit.

Her lower brain could not control her actions, but her prefrontal cortex (her “highest human brain” and the seat of her free will) could. Hansen recognized her irrational urges as “neurological junk” unrelated to actual need. Rather than try to fight, reason with, or “surf” those urges, she acknowledged their presence and otherwise ignored them. Her detachment stripped them of their emotional significance, making them less of a threat. Their neural connections weakened until the urge to binge simply faded away. Hansen’s need to purge as compensation for her bingeing vanished in turn.

She likens her “brain over binge” technique to the practice of “mindfulness” taught by neuropsychiatrist Jeffrey Schwartz to people with obsessive-compulsive disorder. Mindfulness involves observing spontaneous thoughts and feelings in a way that is nonjudgmental, as though they belong to someone else. Doing so helps patients resist the urges associated with OCD.

Central to Hansen’s recovery was the knowledge that she could take matters into her own hands rather than make excuses for her behavior.