How to overcome "all or nothing" thinking with food?

Track everything. Add everything you eat in your diary. You need to face cold hard facts, look at the data, and not just give up and walk away hoping tomorrow will be better. You cannot improve what you do not measure.

A slice of pizza or two for lunch every day wouldn't "blow it." If you stop giving "good" or "bad" names to food, you'll find it easier. All foods are allowable, just log them and succeed!

I swear its my brain that makes me fat!!! I do this too and I get so pissed at myself. I think Dr. Phil is like the feminine cleansing product, and the bag it comes in. He did however say something that has resonated with me throughout the years. "When it comes to food, if you say the words, may as well, you probably shouldn't! !" This has helped me some since I always would think since I blew it already I may as well eat more and have a free day!!! I still have the all or nothing thinking, but it is much less often than it used to be.

1) Every moment is the opportunity for a new choice.

It doesn't matter what else you did that day, week, month, year, life. Would you say, "Well, I already ate all of this for the past XX years, so I guess I blew this lifetime, why bother?" What makes a day such an arbitrary measure of diet progress?

In THIS moment, what decision do you want to make? Think about it, then make it.

2) It's ok if that decision sometimes is pizza. If it is, own it. Depriving yourself entirely of the things you love will suck. Fit it in your calories and enjoy.

Like others have said, log log log. Also, give yourself permission to eat the foods you want. It might take some time, but after a while you start to realize that one slice of pizza, or a donut, or a candy bar, or a cupcake, or some chips doesn't "blow it." Stop telling yourself you can't have those things. Eat toward a calorie goal and if you want one of those things, have it, but commit to the goal.

I had a snickers bar today and I enjoyed it. It wasn't "blowing it," by any means. I logged it and adjusted my dinner accordingly. I came in under my goal.

i pack lunch and snacks for the day. if it's not in the bag, it's not mine.
if it is something out of the ordinary, i have to track before eating.
my worst time of the day is when i get home after a stress filled day, and there
are chips calling to me from the pantry.
my hubby is a stick and likes to eat to eat them for snacks.
so far i haven't sucumbed, but everyday is a struggle

My mantras when I first started:

1) "Nothing tastes as good as skinny feels."
2) "You're eating to live now--not living to eat."

Now I don't have the problem you're facing as often. I managed to change my mindset over time. But lately, I've been having some old issues that keep popping up and have added 10 lbs. since Thanksgiving. I realized that I was getting back into some old habits and have stopped. I started telling myself my mantras again. So far so good.

Edit: Like one of the posters above me, I packed my own food and would eat just that. I pre logged my whole day in my food diary the night before. Even when I was at home, I tried not to deviate from my planned food.

Also, I looked in your profile and saw your age. Your diary isn't public, so I don't know how many calories you're trying to eat with your plan. I know many young people especially who are trying to eat next to nothing. If this is you, keep in mind you are still growing and need a balanced diet with a little extra calcium and other nutrients. Eating too much may be your body's signal, telling you it isn't getting enough food at your present calorie level. Try a decent calorie level for a week or two and try to stick with it. Go from there.

I also have the all or nothing mindset - or as I call it the PERFECTION mindset. In the past I would get bogged down with the same things....well I had bacon cheeseburger and fries, so the milkshake won't hurt because I've already screwed up and may as well drop the diet, because it's not working. I'll start again on Monday and I will make all of the PERFECT choices then. This was my life for 30 years and I slowly added weight until I was 282 lbs.

I have finally learned that life is not PERFECT and I will make mistakes, but if I slip up now...I just pick myself up and go back to a sensible eating plan. The biggest help for me was planning out my meals as much as possible and allowing an occasional treat - if I completely get rid of all cheeseburgers or shakes I will fall off the diet wagon.

Good luck!

I wonder if the "all or nothing" thinking comes as a result of labeling foods into "good or bad". The reality is nothing is off limits, rather logging your food and staying within your caloric requirements.

When I started losing weight I was eating 1200 calories a day and "clean eating" and would wonder why I was failing. I couldn't make it from my healthy breakfast to a healthy lunch. Then I educated myself, and now I eat more (a lot more) and eat whatever I want. I don't feel deprived and I don't feel like I have blown it and therefore I have an eating plan that is sustainable for me.

I would recommend reading the forums here as a great place to get educated. Use the "search" function and type in "all or nothing thinking" and my guess is you may come up with others that have gone through this as well. There are a lot of great things to learn here.

You will find your way. Stick with it.

Track everything. Add everything you eat in your diary. You need to face cold hard facts, look at the data, and not just give up and walk away hoping tomorrow will be better. You cannot improve what you do not measure.

Also this is really good advice. I had a huge craving for Doritos the other day like ungodly craving. It was right before bed, I was ready to go get a bag, like an adult sized bag and crush the whole thing like some disgusting animal that should be caged. I simply plugged in what I was about to do to my body into MFP app, was blown away by the damage I would cause and put myself to sleep. I woke up the next day so proud I didn't give in.

The all or nothing has to come from you and you have to be mentally ready.

There is nothing wrong with a slice of pizza and maybe even 2 depending on your calorie goals. But you have to WANT to commit to your goals and figure out from there how YOU will get past this all or nothing approach.

It's easy for ME to say go ahead and have a piece of pizza as long as it fits in with your goals but it seems that you can't stop at one so maybe for the short term you should avoid any and all temptations until you get into a habit and routine of healthy eating, Once it's become habit it may be easier for you to eat one, enjoy it and stop there.

Maybe try to enter your foods ahead of time into your diary and stick to it?
Some have success with that.
I don't see any food as bad, and do everything in moderation Good luck!

I can relate.

I do this when I eat something that I hadn't planned on eating. Yep: I'm a planner. I plan dinners for my family a week in advance and I will often plan out my meals for the day by lunch time and log them early. It seems crazy, but it keep the guesswork out of it for me so that when I sit down to eat something particularly delicious I already know how much of it I am going to eat. When I plan pizza, I work it into my calories for the day and when I sit down to eat it I put however much of it on my plate and tell myself that's it. When I don't plan pizza, I do end up sitting down to the meal feeling defeated even before I start eating it. And even if I don't feel defeated, I rationalize that it tasted good and I want more and it can't be THAT many calories, anyway.... when I'm finished with one serving. It makes me eat more. And then lots of sugary foods in no moderation afterwards because hey, why not?

For me, it's totally a mental thing. I associate it with my binge tendencies. I mainly control it by planning ahead, but also by only buying single servings. I'm doomed if I buy a whole box of cookies, but if I can buy just one or two at the bakery then one or two is all I can eat. The same thing with the pizza: doomed if there are two large pizzas with different topping choices AND bread sticks and I didn't plan ahead (I like to sample!) but better if there is less pizza and less choices.

Once in awhile if I give in and binge, I just pull myself up out of the "hangover", tell myself tomorrow is a new day, then try try again. Hope that helps!

A person with an addiction, or even a weakness, when confronted with a choice she/he knows is going to lead away from the goal and towards that "pleasure," will turn off the reason sensor in his/her brain. It takes practice and a lot of self-talk to take that off auto-pilot and stay in control of one's senses. Imagine yourself in a situation of temptation, then imagine yourself overcoming it.

Another thing to remember, you may have blown your "goal," but your body definitely knows the difference between two slices of pizza and the whole works. That's your little shoulder devil telling you to go for the mother lode! Don't believe that lie--just enjoy the pizza and remember that tomorrow there may be room for french fries.

As you can see, you are definitely not alone. We are all cheering for you! (And trying to help ourselves, in the process.)

I've so been there - but now I've changed. I think logging it regardless has helped me to change. I look back at the choices I made and realistically why and what could I do better next time. I don't look back through critical glasses either. It's not about missing my chance at perfection. I look back with thoughts like "was it a favorite thing?" "was it peer pressure" "was I just hungry" etc. Then make a plan to prevent the problem or accept that it was a favorite thing and I'm just not doing without favorites. I log it, move on. If I go over my calories for the day I just try to stop before I go over my maintenance calories level. Some days I'm just HANGRY and that's all there is to it.

My current motto is that I choose progress over perfection. If I'm below maintenance - that's progress. If I'm below my goal calories - even better. If I'm over maintenance - what happened today? Sometimes, you just need that dinner out with friends or family and I've learned if that's my breaking point so be it. I just restart the next day trying to do better again.

It's a process and it won't happen day 1. My day 1 was, in fact, a crap fest of high calorie low nutrition foods for the most part and I didn't care. I started from where I really was not from a prewritten unobtainable plan of perfection diet that makes some author rich - I started right where I was and thought to myself "self, what could you do better." and there I was, first tweaks in hand moving forward. I'm still tweaking and moving forward. I've skipped logging for a couple days even - and started right back up. I see logging as my norm now and log whether things are blown away or right on target. It just is what it is and it's not going to be perfect. Nobody likes perfect diet people, they are hangry and judgmental. Relax and just log.