Is it all in my head?

I don't really have any advice, because in a lot of ways I feel exactly the same way you do... I just wanted to say you're in a good place to get encouragement and motivation here. Just keep logging in.

Eat less, burn more. That's the easy part. For me to finally lose 42 lbs after so many tries, I can tell you that it is a lifestyle change. Change your habits. Forget about willpower, just make better choices. And I've tried hypnosis. It didn't work.

Yep it is all in your head, but that doesn't change the fact it is still an issue. You are not the only one I currently weigh 265 pounds. I tried dieting would lose a few pounds then have one of those treat days, and would allow myself some bad foods but kept it to a minimum, or have a really bad day and reach for the nearest comfort food. I call it a vicious cycle. I'd lose a few pounds have a bad day or treat day find I gained several pounds back, feel bad so eat more comfort food, and guess what I now weigh more then when I started.

Over the past two weeks I found out I had high blood pressure (high enough they were concerned I'd have a stroke) and at 44 I'm not ready to die. I sat down and did some serious soul searching.

The following are my problems:

I like me even if I am fat, and have never had trouble getting dates if I really wanted one.
I have major trust issues, as such I often sabotage my own self causing my bad days causing my over eating.
I was raised in a family (including extended family) that are heavyset.
I was raised in the south and fried comfort food is my specialty when it comes to cooking.
I also love fast food, and eat out alot (quick and easy)
I was raised not to waste food and to clean my plate of food.
I do not eat breakfast (unless you count donuts)
I suck at change, it causes me stress which causes me to eat.
I have teenagers in the house who aren't overweight who want sweets and friend foods and easy to cook snack food

SO knowing I had to change my eating habits to lose weight so my blood pressure would lower I sat down and looked at what I knew about me.

I am basically lazy. I am not going to cook healthy nutritious food every day.
I like food full of flavor and texture.
I like sweets.
I can't eat the same thing every day and I hate left overs.
I like grilled food
I like fruits and
I like vegetables

So the first thing I did was not sweat the food for the first week. I learned to get up take my medicine check my blood pressure and eat something (even if it was a donut). This worked well by the end of the week I was easily getting up and eating.
The second week I determined to eat better. But I didn't want to waste food, so I thought about it and decided no food I could get from a drive thru for the week. But that left me with actually having to gasp...cook daily. ugh. So I looked at wI hat I had bought some fresh fruit, and vegetable and made some plans.

I made hamburger packets one night (regular 80/20 hamburger season to taste, make into patties, place with chopped raw potatoes, carrotts, and onion in an aluminum foil packet - 3 pounds of hamburger makes about 12 packets. Cooked 3 for dinner (425 for 40 minutes) and froze the rest.

Next day I took out some steak cubed for stew, bought some chicken strips on sale diced up bell peppers, mushrooms and onion and made kabobs, and cooked them. There was enough kabobs for dinner that night and lunch the next two days.

I then took 1 pound ground chicken mixed with 1 pack of ground sausage split it in half cooked half in a frying pan, and mixed the other half with 1 1/4 cups uncooked rice for rice balls (mix rice meat and season to taste...cook in roast pan half covered with water covered by aluminum foil 350 for about 40 mins makes about 20 1" balls ). The other half I drained oil from put in ziploc and put in refrigerator. (ended up making a version of tuscan soup - potatoes, kale, chicken sausage)

All these meals are great cooked and then frozen so I don't really have left overs unless I want them, and can easily defrost and heat for dinner later in the week.

My point here is when I cook I am trying to do enough work to take care of at least 1 future meal.


You are not alone in thinking it is all in your head, but for me I needed something more then just I should lose weight to make me truly consider why I didn't succeed on diets, and why I have the issues I do.

I know I'm not ready to die, I know what I have to do to make that happen, If the benefit is less weight score. But I can't do a diet, I am calling it a I want to have a life change. I am making that change one step at a time, with small changes the not eating at fast food places and cooking my own foods is a change I am giving myself 2 weeks to get used to, and then I am going to try the no soda in my life change.....

Try thinking of it as a change rather than a diet and be okay with it being in your head, just remember when you think of reaching for that comfort food you need to talk to your head and heart and find out why you are really reaching for it.

Jinxkychick;

I don't have any experience working with a therapist, but I do think, for me at least, there is a psychological component to why I over-indulge when I eat too much. I think there are many people here who struggle with the same issues you do; if we only ate and drank strictly to satisfy our hunger, many of us wouldn't have a problem maintaining a healthy weight. I think it does take a good degree of self reflection to understand why we can't seem to keep our intake within healthy boundaries. For me, that was an important step, and in a sense, I still need to be conscious of where my cravings to binge come from - could be a stressful day, could be I want to celebrate a great day. Whatever the case, sometimes food becomes more than just sustenance, it turns into a response to other problems. In that regard, it takes a bit more emotional work to uncover what's causing someone to derail from a healthy lifestyle change.

I would say you are on the right track in asking the question. And I would also agree with what others have said here, that you are not alone in your cravings, or the struggle to keep your intake within the healthy range. I know I, at least, have frequent moments during the day where I need to get over a mental "hump" to decide not to binge, and that can be very daunting. I can tell you this forum does help; especially if you don't have someone at home to help keep you accountable.

So chin up! You're asking good questions of yourself. It may help to do some emotional digging, and perhaps a therapist would help with that process. In any case, you have my support for one, as someone who has been there, and I'd suspect there are many others here as well who are willing to get behind you.

Maybe you're trying to start off running when it would be more realistic to crawl or learn to walk first?

If you starve yourself on a "diet," it will. Not. Work. You will fall off the wagon and probably end up worse off than before.

If you change your diet (the difference between your diet and dieting) to be mostly healthy, nutritious, satisfying, delicious foods, with the occasional treat here and there, you will probably find it to be much more sustainable and will likely be more successful with it in the long term. You have to make lifelong changes, though. The good thing is that if you choose delicious, healthy foods, it isn't hard to stick to healthier eating patterns. Even if not immediately, you WILL begin to crave these nutritious foods and look forward to eating them because you know how great you feel when you're not eating overly processed or greasy foods.

Personally, I've yo-yo'ed before, too, as I'm sure many people have. I reworked my eating (and exercising) habits a few years back and lost 45 lbs. in 6 months. Then I hit the dreaded plateau and, after a few months of working out like crazy and nothing happening, I lost my motivation and fell off the wagon for... a while. Now I'm back on it.

Mindset is important, as is choosing to get healthy for you and only you. Making a pro/con list to eating differently and working out may help, along with taking small steps and either NOT keeping junk food in your home so you are less likely to binge, or asking others that you live with to keep the junk food somewhere that you don't know about.... preferably not in the kitchen

Good luck!

I would recommend checking out the Eat More 2 Weigh Less and/or In Place of a Road Map groups. I yo-yo dieted for around 15 years before finding an alternative path. Turns out I was restricting my calories too much while dieting, making my body hungry causing me to binge eat the weight back.

By cutting calories by just a small amount, you can lose weight without depriving yourself. You can enjoy all the foods you love but just be aware of portion sizes and work things into your calorie/macro goals.

I did the same thing for years, because I always went on a diet, cut calories back way too much, told myself I could only eat salads, or whatever else, and made it overly restrictive and over complicated.

This time I've been successful because I haven't created a huge deficit, I eat between 1600-1900 calories on a normal day, and no food is off limits. My one rule for food is if I don't like it I don't eat it. When I started I only worried about my calorie intake and making sure my logging was accurate, once I had that under control, I focused on reaching my protein, carbs and fat goals.

I also learned that this isn't about being perfect, it's about being consistent. If I make good choices 80% of the time, I don't worry about the other 20%. Keep it simple, I would suggest investing $20 or so on a digital food scale, really helps with accurate logging and portion size.

Oh and other goal I have is to have at least one delicious treat a day.

I would wager that at LEAST 75% of everyone who started "dieting" last year failed because they chose a plan that was not sustainable. They tried to cut too much, to fast, swore to workout, gave up every "bad"food they could think of and in general tried to change everything they ever knew.

Do you fall into this category? What goals have you set? How much weight do you have to lose? If you have more than 20 lbs and you're trying to eat 1200 calories /day and not eating back excersise I can see why you're failing.

This was my first thought also. With enough determination, I think most people can stick to a diet 2-3 weeks and see results. But if the diet isn't sustainable i.e. I can do this for the long, long run, it is very unlikely to provide long term success..

I don't really have any advice, because in a lot of ways I feel exactly the same way you do... I just wanted to say you're in a good place to get encouragement and motivation here. Just keep logging in.

This is pretty much what I was going to say, too. I know that for me, food has been where I celebrated things (cake!) and what made me feel better after a rough day (comfort food!). It isn't easy, and I'm still learning, toobut I think you can overcome the binge eating thing.

I think you have to give yourself credit for what you DO accomplish, no matter how small that accomplishment appears to you... and it always looks smaller to you than to others - and I'm not talking necessarily weight-wise. One of my biggest issues is that I don't believe I can continue to be successful, even if I have been. That comes from a long long LONG history of being sent negative messages about my weight as well as what I was capable of in other areas of my life.
Don't beat yourself up over falling down. Try and see yourself as the one who gets back up.

I would wager that at LEAST 75% of everyone who started "dieting" last year failed because they chose a plan that was not sustainable. They tried to cut too much, to fast, swore to workout, gave up every "bad"food they could think of and in general tried to change everything they ever knew.

Do you fall into this category? What goals have you set? How much weight do you have to lose? If you have more than 20 lbs and you're trying to eat 1200 calories /day and not eating back excersise I can see why you're failing.

^^^^ this this this this this this this this this

don't diagnose yourself with a psychological problem if what you're experience is a normal human reaction...

most diets are too restrictive or involve a mentality of self-punishment that just sets people up to fail. If you're being set up to fail, then it's no surprise that you're failing.

Focus on long term compliance... find the highest number of calories you can eat whereby you still slowly (but steadily) lose weight, and use your calorie allowance to eat all the foods you want to eat (yep make sure you get enough protein, vitamins and fibre and stuff too, but once you've done that, use your remaining calories how you like) ........ for exercise, choose ways of being physically active (doesn't have to be any formal/gym type exercise it just has to get you out of breath and your heart pumping and/or work your muscles hard) that you really enjoy and know you'll stick to... you don't have to bust your butt in the gym (unless you like to and really enjoy it), you don't have to punish yourself, you just have to get your body moving and your heart pumping... and log your exercise and eat back 80% of your exercise calories. .

then set yourself compliance goals, i.e. 1 week compliance, 2 weeks, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months... etc

the only caution is to be careful to log your food accurately, i.e. use a food scale, not cups and definitely don't guesstimate... and log your calorie burns for exercise realistically.... poor logging is the main reason for failing using this method. Also it may take some trial and error to find your ideal number of calories.... where you're losing weight slowly but steadily, but still have enough calories to enjoy eating including all the foods you want to eat (in sensible serving sizes).... but it's worth getting it right because you're so much more likely to succeed in the long term if you make everything manageable and easy to stick to.

I too have been there done that many times over. I grew up being very thin. I only starting gaining weight in my second year of college. I ate fast food daily, even when I was home. It was almost an addiction. But, the same way my dad was able to go cold turkey on cigarettes when he learned he had cancer, I realized I was able to do it with food. I'm not addicted to fast food anymore (for years now). I now call it lack of will power. I CAN stop eating whenever I want to, and I have.

ONE-DAY-AT-A-TIME.

Nothing happens overnight. The same way it took you years to put the weight on, the weight will come off slowly (if its fast, you will end up back where you started and even worse). You have to realize that if you've been overweight for a very long time, it will be an emotional roller coaster going back down. VERY EMOTIONAL. I did a lot of crying when I was starting to lose weight. My life problems became center stage. I realized that I was stuffing my face with food to fill a void and push down my emotions. Like my mom said, those feelings are devilish, don't ever let anyone or anything get you down.

HAVE HOPE! Believe in yourself & Love yourself .. your life will only get better (weight-wise and otherwise). :drinker: :bigsmile: :flowerforyou:

Thinking of it as dieting means you are thinking short term. Making lifestyle changes you can live with permanently is a better way of looking at things. Start slowly. Track your calories for a couple of weeks and eat at maintenance so you don't feel like you're starving. Make a few changes, (not too dramatic) in your diet, and then when you're feeling good about that, slowly reduce your caloric intake to lose 1-2 lbs a week. Ditching soda one week, having fruit instead of ice cream the following week, having smaller portions of your favorite meals rather than ditching them all together and having salad for dinners, are all good ways to slowly make changes that you can live with.

I do not know if it's in your head. I did realize at one point I was using food as a form of self-medication. I also had lost quite a bit of weight two years ago before I moved to Indiana. Most of that weight came back when I got home sick and started making Pennsylvania Dutch foods. (These foods are often made in large quantities and are high in starch.)

Before I get too far off track, only you can figure out your issues. You may or may not have an eating disorder. It is unlikely, but it is still possible. Even if you did have an eating disorder, the desire to change still has to come from within.