All or nothing mindset?

I know it is very common but I dont really have any advice for you other than to try something more flexible.

http://wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/
"All-or-Nothing Dieting & Eating Disorder Risk
In 1997, a general physician named Steven Bratman coined the term orthorexia nervosa [21], which he defines as, “an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food.” It reminds me of the counterproductive dietary perfectionism I’ve seen among many athletes, trainers, and coaches. One of the fundamental pitfalls of dichotomizing foods as good or bad, or clean or dirty, is that it can form a destructive relationship with food. This isn’t just an empty claim; it’s been seen in research. Smith and colleagues found that flexible dieting was associated with the absence of overeating, lower bodyweight, and the absence of depression and anxiety [22]. They also found that a strict all-or-nothing approach to dieting was associated with overeating and increased bodyweight. Similarly, Stewart and colleagues found that rigid dieting was associated with symptoms of an eating disorder, mood disturbances, and anxiety [23]. Flexible dieting was not highly correlated with these qualities. Although these are observational study designs with self-reported data, anyone who spends enough time among fitness buffs knows that these findings are not off the mark."

I have suffered from this too in the past. It's much easier to stop doing it if you think about calorie counting and healthy eating as a long-term project. If you think you're on a "diet" that will last a few weeks/months then it's easy to feel like you've wrecked it - and might as well binge/give up - if you mess up.

Now that I'm accepting that I may need to do this forever I'm much more relaxed. I still probably have a day a week when I go way over my calories, but I don't care because I'm still losing - if slowly - and I view this as a marathon, not a race. I figure I'm always going to have splurge days because I'm not a super-disciplined or organised person, and life happens. Now I focus on getting back on track rather than beating myself up. That's what thin people do naturally: they cut back after a big day of eating. It's a skill I want to learn and I think it will be vital to my success. I know that if I thought I had to be perfect every day there would be no way I could keep up this lifestyle up indefinitely.

Hope that helps.

Are you able to eat one day with no rules?

An all or nothing approach blocks you into a corner and is brittle.
Be more flexible and see your journey as being allowed to get blown off course a few times but one of steady progress towards target.

Make more steps towards target than away from it, dont beat yourself up and keep going.

melbmeg wrote: »

I have suffered from this too in the past. It's much easier to stop doing it if you think about calorie counting and healthy eating as a long-term project. If you think you're on a "diet" that will last a few weeks/months then it's easy to feel like you've wrecked it - and might as well binge/give up - if you mess up.

Now that I'm accepting that I may need to do this forever I'm much more relaxed. I still probably have a day a week when I go way over my calories, but I don't care because I'm still losing - if slowly - and I view this as a marathon, not a race. I figure I'm always going to have splurge days because I'm not a super-disciplined or organised person, and life happens. Now I focus on getting back on track rather than beating myself up. That's what thin people do naturally: they cut back after a big day of eating. It's a skill I want to learn and I think it will be vital to my success. I know that if I thought I had to be perfect every day there would be no way I could keep up this lifestyle up indefinitely.

Hope that helps.

This is incredibly good advice.

I struggle with all or nothing thinking too, and combatting it starts with my mind. Calming techniques and repeating mantras like "It's a marathon, not a race" or "Progress not perfection" a few times, taking deep breaths, reminding myself I don't want to keep up the destructive cycle of binge/deprive--all of these things help me. I also find distraction super helpful. I do something to distract my mind--it's great if it's something healthy like exercise--but it's not necessary to work out. I like to embroider and it really absorbs me, so when I feel those negative messages crowding my brain, I just switch it off through the activity.

Everyone is right about so-called slips not being a big deal. Like the commenter I quoted above said, think of it as your life, and no one is perfect across a lifetime. But we can do the best we can most times, while allowing ourselves to be imperfect.

There's no "rules." There's decisions you make multiple times a day. You're a grownup. You can make a grownup decision to eat something that you want. Because you're a grownup, you accept that there are consequences for your decision. You accept that eating that thing means that you may wipe out your deficit for today, and if it's calorie-laden enough, for yesterday, too. You accept that this means a delay in reaching your goal. It doesn't "ruin" or "derail" anything... Just delays by a day or two. And each time you do this, you know you're adding a day or two to your journey. But that's OK. You're a grownup and can make that decision without guilt or shame, because you are answerable only to you.

And you can make the decision to keep on eating high calorie foods for the rest of the day, out of frustration, because you regret the consequences of that first decision, and then feel guilty for having delayed reaching your goal even further, and then be upset about it, and then do the same thing again in a few days. But probably not, because that's what a child would do and you are a grownup.

I don't think you're just being childish.

If you ran a red light, would you choose to just run the rest of them that day? Try to isolate the decisions. There's nothing unique about a day in itself. Treat each eating situation as a new event and when it's over, don't let your self-scoring of it affect your next meal choices.

Weight loss is math. Going over for one meal is ok. Going over for all meals is the deal breaker.

It helped me to realize how convenient that 'all or nothing' thinking is with dieting. If on any level I didn't want to diet that day, all I had to do was blow it once and I was off the hook.

Maybe also practice eating in the gray area. Make your new rule be that you get to break some rules and then you go back to what you consider 'on plan', without waiting until the next day.

tiptoethruthetulips wrote: »

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.

One meal out of 21 in a week isn't going to be the undoing of has been achieved.

You just need to be keep moving on.

^THIS!

Its taken some time for me to lose some of my bad habits (or at least lessen them) - its gotten a lot better since I started forcing myself to log it all anyways rather than write the day off and ditch the log for the day in denial / disgust - just log those days and realize its no big deal, you can't be perfect - in fact "forgiving" yourself for not being perfect takes a lot of the pressure off and makes long term weight loss sustainable. I'm finally learning this after years and years of fizzling out. If you can "get it" at 23 you're light years ahead of most of us.

WalkingAlong wrote: »

I don't think you're just being childish.

If you ran a red light, would you choose to just run the rest of them that day? Try to isolate the decisions. There's nothing unique about a day in itself. Treat each eating situation as a new event and when it's over, don't let your self-scoring of it affect your next meal choices.

Weight loss is math. Going over for one meal is ok. Going over for all meals is the deal breaker.

It helped me to realize how convenient that 'all or nothing' thinking is with dieting. If on any level I didn't want to diet that day, all I had to do was blow it once and I was off the hook.

Maybe also practice eating in the gray area. Make your new rule be that you get to break some rules and then you go back to what you consider 'on plan', without waiting until the next day.

I learned to employ similar thinking: if I got a speeding ticket on my way to work, would I just disobey all the traffic laws for the rest of the day? So, why let one bad food choice tank your whole day? Make your next choice better immediately. Don't wait until tomorrow!

Yes I am the same way. Have you tried to read any of the Geneen Roth books?

All you can do is try 'not' to be that way. But I struggle everyday.