Weight gain

Try to get the time factor out of your head. Time driven weight loss is a way to turn success, lost lbs, into failure, not fast enough. Even if you could lose the weight that fast, it might not be the best in terms of keeping it gone.

Have you thought about what’s going on with you. Gaining 2 lbs in a week requires about 7000 extra calories. That’s 1000 extra every day. What changed for you that you did that?

Do you count calories and keep a food diary? A food diary is a great way to get control of the process.

just curious, what specific foods do you crave causing the overeating?

saraheid wrote: »

I'm addicted to anything with sugar!!

A thing you could try - which works for some people but not all - is to intentionally increase the amount of whole fruit you eat, making it a point to get several servings daily.

I heard the suggestion from a registered dietitian that making it a point to eat 3 fruit servings daily could help reduce cravings for more calorie-dense, less nutritious sweets such as cookies, cakes, donuts, candies, etc. I found that to be true, for me. Some other people here on MFP have had similar experiences, but it's not universal.

At first, it took willpower to cut down on the non-fruit sweet treats alongside eating more fruit. In a short number of weeks, though, the cravings dropped way off, and it didn't really take willpower anymore (though it was still a good idea to reduce the amounts of other sweets I had in the house, just to help break the habit; or at least put them out of sight where I'd have to think of them and go get them from a cupboard or freezer for example).

After a while, I was able to be less strict about getting the full 3 fruit servings every day, and just eat fruit to taste. (I still eat some daily: It's good, nutritious, worth the calories.) At first, I think it's good to stick with whole fruit, vs. dried fruit, because the former is a bit more filling, not as quick to eat.

In the longer run, a lot of simple sweets (like grocery store cookies, cakes, etc.) started to be unappealing, just too simple, *just* sweet, and kind of boring, definitely not worth the calories. I still enjoy the occasional rich dessert, or a reasonable serving of good chocolate, or some other special thing, but there's no extra willpower or effort needed to keep those things in reasonable bounds.

May not work for you, but might be worth the experiment, to see.

Regarding losing the weight again, don't feel compelled to do anything drastic or rush the process. You might be surprised how much of that new weight is due to water retention from the increase of sugar in your diet. Any of that water weight will come off very rapidly when you get back to a healthier nutrition plan, especially if you do any mild to moderate exercising.

When you get back down to where you want to be for maintenance that should be a slow process as well. A lot of people make the mistake when they get to their goal weight of thinking they can go back to eating like "normal". The problem is that after a long term deficit your body is not conditioned for "normal", it will want to consume far more calories than you have been used to and far more than you need. You need to train your body for maintenance by slowly adding calories back to your plan and watching how your body responds. I know that's frustrating because it can take a while but it is worth it. I have been adjusting to maintenance for the last two months and I expect it will take a few to several more to make sure I get it right.

I know these will probably sound like empty words, but try not to get depressed about it. This is a pretty common thing that people deal with when they try to start maintaining their new weight. Thinks of it as a good lesson that you caught before it got too bad and will help prepare you for successful maintenance in the future.