I'll never lose the weight

Stop bingeing on the weekends. I know it may sound a bit harsh, but you answered the question yourself. Your problem is your weekend binges. Stop doing that and you're golden.

I would suggest trying to incorporate the things you like into your diet to prevent the binges.

I've found that the best way to control my eating is to faithfully weigh and log everything I eat, even the pint of Ben and Jerry's. Log it BEFORE you eat it, and then look at what it does to your eating plan and decide if you REALLY need to eat it. I even plan out and log a day's food in the morning. Then if I'm tempted to eat something not in the day's plan, I can see what it will do to my calorie count, and again decide if it's worth it.

What is the context of this binging? Is it going out with friends, or on your own?

I used to weigh a great 110 pounds. I was skinny, heathy, and most of all confident. After I gained 30 pounds, and I haven't been able to lose it since. I've spent a year in a half dieting, on and off on this website, restricting, not restricting, I even TRYED eating the exact same thing every day. I'm great at exercising, I can go to the gym routinely everyday and burn 650 calories. But that's not the problem. Every weekend, I have huge binges, which destroy the amount of work I do during the week. These huge binges prevent me from losing any weight, and I just can't control them. I really want my confidence back. I'm not asking to lose the 30 pounds I gained , just 25. I can't lose 25 pounds when some have you have lost 150! I feel like a failure. Any advise?

Is your profile picture you now or when you weighed 110 pounds? You look pretty trim.

Part of the problem sounds like a self esteem issue. Your title is all-telling and negative. Also, "skinny" is not synonymous with "healthy" and "confident." You can be healthy and confident whether you are "skinny" or not.

My advice. First of all, stop giving yourself the negative messages. Tell yourself today that you will change your eating habits. Weight all your food and measure your liquids and log all your food and exercise. Make sure your entries are as accurate as possible. Make sure your calories are enough in each day that you don't binge on the weekends, because bingeing usually means you are not eating enough. Since you say you binge on the weekends, my guess is you are not eating enough throughout the week.

Also, you say you burn 600 calories with exercise. Where do you get the calorie burn estimations from? MFP and gym machines and internet sources always way overestimate calorie burns.

The best of luck, and make a commitment to hang in there and take control of your eating habits.

How much do you eat during the week? What's the actual calorie amount? (Sorry if I missed it.)

you don't need to feel as a failure coz you're not them and they aren't you it all depends on you and the thing of binging you can stop it by making yourself busy on weekends coz boredom can be one of the facts of gaining weight , you can also tell yourself in the morning what you should eat today , don't bring junk food to home and like that you wont have the temptation on binging junk food..... I hope it helps you and yah be confident of yourself
tell yourself that you can do it :happy:

My guess is that you are not getting enough to eat during the week. When you go out with friends and feel happy and comfortable, you relax and your body goes into feast mode since it was just in famine mode. Nourish yourself more during the week. Something that also helps me is to have something nutrient dense alongside something not so nutrient dense. (A soup or salad, then the cake.)

I get that, especially the drinks part. Once you have a drink, your inhibitions go down and you convince yourself it's okay to cut loose.

I don't drink as much these days, but it still happens to me at Mexican restaurants with that d**n bowl of tortilla chips. You tell yourself you're "only going to have a couple" and, next thing you know, the bowl is empty.

One trick I learned from someone on the WW forums (and this could apply to drinks, too): Every time you eat a chip, break off a little corner and line them up on the table in front of you. That way you have a running total of how many you're eating. Helps keep you mindful. This works pretty well, when you remember to do it.

You could carry a stack of those little bangle bracelets in your purse (just as an example) and put one on every time you have a drink. If you get home with stack of bracelets from wrist to elbow, at least you know how many drinks to log. ;-)

Also, as someone above mentioned, when it comes to calories there are drinks and *DRINKS*. If you like margaritas (I DO!), you're just asking to pack on pounds. All of those drinks made with high fructose corn syrup sweetened mixers are calorie bombs. To my surprise, even Bloody Marys are kind of "weighty." I always thought, "It's just tomato juice," but a little bottle of that bloody mary mixer stuff is 60 calories by itself.

Beer isn't very weight loss friendly, but not as bad as the sweet cocktails. Wine is a better choice, especially because you tend to sip, not gulp wine. Plus, it makes you look classy. ;-) If you'd rather have hard liquor, make it a shot of alcohol with a calorie-free mixer like diet coke or diet 7-up. Vodka is nearly tasteless, so you can drink it with a diet soda mixer and it's not awful. Or even do a shot of something you like and chase it with a diet drink. (I mean plain alcohol like vodka, rum, etc., not cordial-type drinks like Kahlua--they're the calorie equivalent of candy.) When drinking, if you can keep the calories confined mostly to the alcohol itself, you're still getting the effect of having a drink without the unnecessary calories. Not to say alcohol is ever remotely healthy or diet-friendly, but you can do better than frozen daiquiris, Cosmopolitans, Mojitos, fruit juice drinks, etc.

Another idea: only drink alcohol every other round. One drink, one diet soda or water and so forth. That'll help you pace yourself better and hopefully cut down on the calorie carnage, plus it'll go easier on your liver and kidneys. If you're going out drinking, your goal should be to stay pleasantly buzzed, not blotto.

Remember, just because your friends are drinking five or six drinks a night (or more?), doesn't mean YOU have to. If they're really friends (not "frenemies"), they won't make a big deal of it if you only drink alcohol every other round. When they ask, simply explain you're trying to lose a few pounds, you're pacing yourself, etc. Or just shrug it off--you shouldn't have to explain. If they do make an issue of it, you might need to consider cultivating some new friendships. Says mom. ;-)

The way I see it, you CAN lose the weight when you make up your mind to do it and stop giving yourself permission to fall of the wagon on weekends. If you ate a few cookies, then saw a starving puppy staring up at you with sad, hungry eyes, you'd be able to stop and give the rest to the puppy, wouldn't you? Even after a drink, you don't automatically turn into a brainless automaton. You still hear that little voice saying, "You'd better not drink/eat too much--remember, you're trying to lose weight." You just choose to ignore it and keep rolling like a runaway train.

I imagine there is a small percentage of people out there with literally zero willpower who really can't exercise self-control, but you say you do fine all week, so you're obviously not one of them. You just need to become the adult in your own mind who knows where to draw the line. Either that or, as others said, stop going out altogether--and you don't want that, do you? Otherwise, accept the fact that you're going to not only keep the extra 30 lbs, but in all likelihood continue to gradually gain until you're very overweight indeed. At your age, you're in a perfect place to lose the weight, maintain your lovely taut skin, and set yourself up for a lifetime of good health. Don't waste this window of opportunity--it'll never get any easier.

One trick I learned from someone on the WW forums (and this could apply to drinks, too): Every time you eat a chip, break off a little corner and line them up on the table in front of you. That way you have a running total of how many you're eating. Helps keep you mindful. This works pretty well, when you remember to do it.

That is a great tip. Wish I would have done that when I went out on Friday to a Mexican restaurant and ate mostly chips and salsa! At least I was good and had water to drink but had about 3 sips of DH's margarita.

There are several good posts on this thread so I won't beat a dead horse. But I will say that I never considered myself as someone with an ounce of willpower. I thought going out with friends was reason for celebration so why on earth would I not have food and drinks that I wouldn't typically enjoy at home. Now I see going out as enjoying the moment--the conversation, the laughs, dancing, etc. So while I try to not be silly strict with my food and drink choices, I make sure to find menu options that are healthy and reasonable. Before, I would mindlessly order my favorite enchiladas with rice and beans and a big ol' strawberry margie. Now I have one tortilla, lots of grilled meat and veggies, salsa and chips and a light drink or water.

Bottom line is you have to figure out why you're bingeing on the weekends since you seem to do so well during the week. Likely there are several factors coming into play, but the first thing I would try is to stay home one weekend and see if you're tempted to binge there. I'm wondering if hanging with friends (and alcohol ) is clouding your judgement. Or maybe you are just so strict with yourself during the week that you crave weekends where you can let loose? Good luck with your assessment and I hope you find the answers soon.

I read your post because you sound a bit like me. I exercise regularly and most of my meals are healthy, but in my case I mindlessly eat mostly in the afternoon and early evening. I'm not 30 lbs overweight because of anything I eat at mealtime. Diets never worked because they focus on the "what" I eat. I needed help with the "why" I eat, which is difficult to answer on my own. So I started seeing a nutritional therapist. Rome wasn't built in a day and 20 years of moderate emotional eating aren't going to disappear overnight. So this is going to take a while (I've been going for about 2 months), but I am already becoming increasingly aware of my triggers. Give me a year and I will let you know how successful it is.

Thankyou so much for this. I thought I was in this alone. I just wish I didn't have this disordered eating. I think it's because weight loss has become such a huge part of my life, that I obsess over it, and it's always constantly on my mind that I need to be slim. It drives me crazy and makes me have such low self-esteem

Nope, you're not the only one. I also binge when I go drinking with my friends on Friday and Saturday nights and ruins all the hard work during the week. I've started the 5:2 diet and hoping this will give me a little bit more wriggle room with my weekends.

Honestly sounds like you know what the problem is. You have an obsession with losing weight, you lack confidence to do so, you try overly hard and then self-sabatoge on weekends with binging.

Sounds to me like you need to focus on your emotional state and stress level and try to bring yourself to calmness and then re-approach weight loss not with the goal to make the scale go down quickly but rather as a goal for health, just trying to make some moderate changes to your lifestyle. Increase your exercise a bit, make healthier eating choices but otherwise eat full meals. You need to learn how to relax.

If you approach weight loss in a panic and break-down every week it is just going to add to your stress not help with your health. Cut yourself some slack, find something you enjoy doing that is physical and do that more often. Otherwise just try to enjoy life until you get to a place of calmness.