Self Sabotage

I found this article really helpful when I started asking myself some of the hard questions about self sabotage.
I followed the advice of the article and have finally started to consistently lose weight again. For me, the biggest thing was admitting that I focus more on my failures than my successes. Since starting to change that, I feel better all around. When I do slip, I find it easier to move past it and am no longer beating myself up about it for days. It allows me to focus on moving forward.

Best of luck to you
http://www.peertrainer.com/how_to_stop_self_sabotage.aspx?page=5

What happens next? Do you keep logging through it? Or do you give up for a while?

There are a lot of mental tricks to losing weight. First is to realize that it's very mental but not very biological. Your body isn't on a diet -- your body doesn't know. It's your mind.

I've got two rather goof-proof rules:
1) Log everything accurately always.
2) Walk 3x a week for 30 minutes

That's it. It's really hard to screw that up or sabotage it. The logging gives me the better control -- before, during, and after the eating. But what it doesn't give me is any guilt, any sense of deprivation or prohibition. I am aware of the calorie goal, and I sometimes pass it but most of the time my control is good. I've never had a two week period where I failed to lose weight. (Day 115, lost 65 lbs. -- M 51 5'11" started at 298.)

My body has only known one diet and I've been on it since before birth. It's the brain that thinks in terms of diets -- starting and quitting. Helping separate brain tricks from nutrition helps me understand that whatever I do that successfully manages my earthly being, I'm planning on doing it for life. The accounting may change -- Am I at a deficit, or maintenance, or surplus (trying to gain)? -- but it's still something that I have to conscientiously track if I want to be in control.

Logging is the key to better control. This is my fourth major weight loss. The other three worked until they stopped working and I quit after they stopped working. As I started this effort, I realized that all four featured logging food and it was during that part that I always lost the best. Previously, I'd feel like I was getting the hang of the diet and quit logging. It wasn't soon after that where I'd quit the weight-loss effort altogether.

So logging is now the plan -- logging now during weight loss, and still logging into maintenance, and never entirely stopping. If I do ever cut back on logging, it'll be to do it for the first week of every month. But it's easy enough just to do it (take 5 minutes a day). If I can log it, I can eat it. If I have a disaster and keep logging, I haven't quit. I am back in control much more quickly than if I quit.

So logging is the plan. The rest of it are just minor details.

I'm glad to see you're a former OA'er. Keep going back if you liked it. If you're USA/Canada-based, there's also TOPS as a different option.

I think sometimes it is not entirely mental. Body chemistry plays a large role. Certain substances in food that don't affect most people could be causing this behavior. Take for example alcohol - an alcoholic does not usually start out suffering from low self esteem, moral turpitude, desires for self destruction, etc., but their body chemistry does not allow moderate use of alcohol like 'normal' people and many of those feelings follow.
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Another example is depression. Medication works well in many cases because once again brain chemistry is causing certain kinds of depression, not actual life events.
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With the advent of processed foods, there could be chemicals or substances that play a similar role in your body chemistry. Personally, I would read package labels closely and try reducing this or that and see if you notice any change for the better. I'm not saying you should eliminate food groups; just colorings, flavors, sugars, and additives of different sorts. Think of it as an allergy test.