Please help :-(

step 1) - STOP thinking of foods as bad - every time you do that you cause issues. Foods (as long as its not rotten, something you are allergic too etc) - is all fine in moderation. If you want something plan it into your calories for the day

Try this- You seem to understand that the concept of “bad” food and the way your brain uses it is to defeat your efforts. Push back. Food is food. You need calories to live. If you were stranded on and island with nothing to eat but 800 bags of crips it is doubtful that you would be calling crisps bad. Push back. Weight loss is mostly a matter of problem solving. Over and over and over. There’s no end really. Every day has new challenges.

Plus its just not possible to do weight loss for long without missteps. And there are a lot of ways to make mistakes- everything from misread NI, misread menus, and bad math to inadequate planning, lack of focus due to fatigue and plain old bad decisions. Lots of ways to make mistakes. But mistakes do not equal failure. The only way to fail is to quit.

So going forward mistakes and missteps are just that and not failure. Food choices are not bad or good. They are either helpful or unhelpful or maybe not so helpful in meeting your goals. Even wine, while not exactly the best diet choice, can be helpful to your program if it helps make your life enjoyable while fitting in your numbers.

Do you use a food scale? One reason I want accurate counting is to make sure I’m getting enough. It’s always are two part analysis 1) are you losing weight? 2) are you satisfied with how you are living? Deprivation is a plan killer. It’s not just a matter of beating ourselves into submission.

This time start your food diary and never stop. The process is more important than the numbers. Set up a program for weekly official weigh ins. What you want is a loss at the end of the week. Over time you will find that what happens in one meal or even one day doesn’t define the entire week. If you find yourself dissatisfied with your progress after several weeks, go back and review your diary. The issues you need to address should be recorded there.

Going forward embrace the entire process, not the short term results. Know this- calorie counting works given enough time. There’s a learning curve. You aren’t going to get there in 3 days or a week or even 3 weeks. Give it time. Right now if your brain is screaming that you aren’t the kind of person to keep a food diary or stick with it past even one misstep, tell your brain to shut up. It’s your life, you have a right to decide things for yourself and you want to give this a fair test. About 6 weeks. You’ll see it works.

And this- it works if you’re losing weight. Setting out to lose 1 lb and only losing .4 isn’t failure. Its just not as good as you had hoped. Time will be on your side if you let it.