The guilt of eating

There's a difference between feeling guilty about eating what you need to and maintain your body and guilty about overeating and binging. You may need to eat something more substantial to fill you up. Try having a piece of toast or an English muffin with your greek yogurt, or a filling piece of fruit like a banana or apple. Then you might not feel so tempted to eat off plan.

Most of us feel somewhat guilty when we seriously cheat -- like eat tons of dessert, pizza, burgers and fries. Some feel so guilty they get in a spiral and just keep eating like that.

However, if you have serious guilt issues about food, you might thing about whether your focus is healthy or an ED.

I get that way too with food. But i think the fact that you checked your calories and it was only 197 is awesome. I made dinner the other night and the protein portion weighted in at 160 cal per portion and i was REALLY hungry so i ate 2 portions which pushed me over my 1400 calorie goal. so i started feeling really guilty then realized i could go run for 30 minutes and burn it off. So i did. Then logged in exercise and then met my goal. Maybe when you feel l ike binging (which is ok from time to time) on junk food check calories first. Bc as long as its a portion size ( like one scone or a snack bag of doritos) and not like a dozen scones or a family bag of doritos, the calories arent that bad. And at the end of the day , no matter what fad diet is in, if Calories in are less then calories out , you will lose weight . it doesnt matter if its protein or carb or straight sugar good luck hope you meet all your goals, this weight management thing is so tough!

your username... you're in this to be healthy.... focus on mental health as well as physical health. Feeling guilty about eating food is not good for mental health. stop viewing eating as something bad, instead view it as something necessary (and fun) to give your body the nutrition it needs. Allow yourself to enjoy eating.

You're hungry because you're not eating enough. You gave in to that hunger because you're a member of the animal kingdom and that means 600 million years of natural selection in favour of individuals who don't starve to death when there's food around. It's how your body evolved to work. Instead of beating yourself up for giving in to your hunger, which is a totally normal, healthy thing to do, use it as a sign that you should maybe re-evaluate your eating plan, in particular with regards to the total number of calories you're eating daily. Excessive restriction is counterproductive in the long term. Don't aim for fast fat loss, aim for slow and sustainable fat loss. Aim to eat the highest number of calories you can while still steadily losing weight. That way you don't get so hungry that you feel the need to cave in... you find it a lot easier to stick to your eating plan. The fact that you're feeling more and more hungry each day strongly suggests that you're not eating enough, because this is how normal, physiologically based hunger works.

It's extremely common for people to eat too little, then when they feel hungry all the time or overeat or binge eat, they blame themselves for lacking willpower, being weak, etc... they diagnose themselves with emotional eating issues... when really it's all just normal physiological responses to not eating enough. And feeling guilty for having normal, human (or should i say normal animal kingdom!) responses is being extremely cruel to yourself... I mean if someone did that to another person, i.e. underfed them then berated them for having normal responses to the inevitable hunger they suffered, they would be considered a very cruel person.............. so don't inflict that kind of cruelty on yourself. Re-evaluate your calorie goal and eating plan so you get enough to eat. Even if it takes a few attempts to find the ideal number of calories for you (i.e. where you get plenty to eat, don't feel constantly hungry, and still lose weight slowly but steadily) it's worth it because then you can stick to your eating plan long term without difficulty and maintain a healthy weight for life. A good place to start is to reset your MFP goal to lose just 1lb a week (or 0.5lb a week if you only have a few lbs to lose) and to log and eat back 80% of your exercise calories. yes it's slower, but the aim is long term success and permanent fat loss.

your username... you're in this to be healthy.... focus on mental health as well as physical health. Feeling guilty about eating food is not good for mental health. stop viewing eating as something bad, instead view it as something necessary (and fun) to give your body the nutrition it needs. Allow yourself to enjoy eating.

You're hungry because you're not eating enough. You gave in to that hunger because you're a member of the animal kingdom and that means 600 million years of natural selection in favour of individuals who don't starve to death when there's food around. It's how your body evolved to work. Instead of beating yourself up for giving in to your hunger, which is a totally normal, healthy thing to do, use it as a sign that you should maybe re-evaluate your eating plan, in particular with regards to the total number of calories you're eating daily. Excessive restriction is counterproductive in the long term. Don't aim for fast fat loss, aim for slow and sustainable fat loss. Aim to eat the highest number of calories you can while still steadily losing weight. That way you don't get so hungry that you feel the need to cave in... you find it a lot easier to stick to your eating plan. The fact that you're feeling more and more hungry each day strongly suggests that you're not eating enough, because this is how normal, physiologically based hunger works.

It's extremely common for people to eat too little, then when they feel hungry all the time or overeat or binge eat, they blame themselves for lacking willpower, being weak, etc... they diagnose themselves with emotional eating issues... when really it's all just normal physiological responses to not eating enough. And feeling guilty for having normal, human (or should i say normal animal kingdom!) responses is being extremely cruel to yourself... I mean if someone did that to another person, i.e. underfed them then berated them for having normal responses to the inevitable hunger they suffered, they would be considered a very cruel person.............. so don't inflict that kind of cruelty on yourself. Re-evaluate your calorie goal and eating plan so you get enough to eat. Even if it takes a few attempts to find the ideal number of calories for you (i.e. where you get plenty to eat, don't feel constantly hungry, and still lose weight slowly but steadily) it's worth it because then you can stick to your eating plan long term without difficulty and maintain a healthy weight for life. A good place to start is to reset your MFP goal to lose just 1lb a week (or 0.5lb a week if you only have a few lbs to lose) and to log and eat back 80% of your exercise calories. yes it's slower, but the aim is long term success and permanent fat loss.

I am quoting this for extra emphasis - I think it is excellent advice and hope you are able to find it helpful.

Anyone else feeling bad about eating?

I often feel bad about overeating, but not about eating. My main goal is health and I can't be healthy without food.

No.

Nor do I feel differently about eating 200 calories of meat, bread or vegetables. Try to bring your mental focus away from constantly thinking about food. It's doing you no favors.

Dont feel bad & dont be hard on yourself!!!

Your given your calories from MFP and you can eat 'whatever' you want for those calories!

You have a love hate relationship with food & think maybe its best for you too see someone about your relationship with food/mental/weight issues!

This will help you to learn & enjoy all the yummy different foods out there... and not feel bad!!!

Good luck x

Yes. I do this all the time. Every day. Even when I eat breakfast. I should be patting myself on the back for actually eating breakfast because I KNOW it is a good for me to eat breakfast, but when I let myself, I say, welp, there goes, 150, or 250 or 300 calories.. for the day. I get it. I try to save as much as I can because I am so afraid I am going to binge at night.