I don't want to be fat anymore. I don't want to live my life wondering "am I too fat to do that". But food always seems to win. How do you get beyond letting food win? I always give into my cravings. I want to be stronger but when it is just me and food. Food always wins. HELP!!!!
Every bite you eat is a choice. You have to have a plan in place of things you can do instead of eat. Cravings last 15-20 minutes. Then they go away. Do not keep things you shouldn't eat in the house. Have containers of vegetables all ready to eat and keep a fruit bowl on the counter. I was 356 pounds and I decided to make better choices for myself. I also found when I added exercise, my appetite diminished. Protein keeps you full and satisfied. Eat a little with every meal and snack.
You don't LET the food win. You decide once and for all, no matter what and permanently that YOU are the winner here. You're done being ruled by some - food. You DO have the power to conquer this. Those urges may be strong, but you've got to be stronger. Remember - you don't have to give into a craving. You don't have to have something just because you want it. Not when you want something MORE. You're a mature, responsible adult and you must make mature, responsible decisions.
I'm pressed for time now and just cut and pasted two recent posts (one from today, one a bit longer ago), so if it's repetitive and doesn't directly answer your question, that is the reason. I just didn't want to go without saying something.
I want you to know that you CAN change this. You CAN.
Will it be easy - no - that's initially. The hardest part is starting and the first few weeks as you force the old bad habits to die down and incorporate the new healthy ones.
As hard as it is to start and as hard as those first weeks will be, it's no where near as hard as being super morbidly obese. THAT'S hard and doesn't get any easier.
I tried for a long time to figure out the whys. I realized that was inconsequential. I wasted too much time on that. It was time for some ACTION. I knew I could not go on that way and a change HAD to occur.
For whatever reasons I binged, and as you go along your journey, they may become more apparent. You don't have to have everything figured out right away to make a change. Anyway, for whatever pup rose my binging served - it stopped serving the purpose. The price became to high. So even if initially there was a *good* reason for it, the bad outweighed the good. And I knew that. But here's the thing - at some point it just becomes plain old habit. It's what you know. It's what you're used to. It's what you do.
I would love for you to make the firm decision to change this behavior. I did. But I also HAD to set myself up for success.
That meant banning, yes banning all the foods that I craved, desired, wanted and overate the most. Sugar, flour, junk. I made them defnite NO's. They were off limits to me. To eat them was no longer an option. I kept telling myself over and over again, "I just don't do that anymore, I just don't do that anymore". I know it sounds crazy and extreme, but in a very short time (I was shocked to find this out), my cravings for that stuff GREATLY diminished. The longer I went without - the less I wanted it. MIraculous!!! Some people say *everything in moderation*, umm no. I tried that route for decades. It doesn't work. Ask any alcoholic. I couldn't let it. "JUst this one time, one little bite, oh it can't hurt". Well it DOES hurt.
So I'd love for you to ban the junk-y foods, but ADD in healthy, delicious, satisfying, lower calorie foods. One that taste good AND are good FOR YOU - long after your done chewing. Rid your house of the garbage, fill it up with the good, wholesome foods that won't send you into a feeding frenzy.
It takes time to find these foods, which is another reason the beginning stages are so difficult, but they're out there. Be creative!
I also urge you to write EVERYTHING down BEFORE it goes in your mouth. No exceptions!! This is a GREAT tool.
And plan ahead. Plan, plan and than plan some more. Your meals and your snacks. It's much easier to avoid the bad stuff, if you've got GOOD stuff on hand, at your fingertips.
Counting calories is another precious tool. It puts the brakes on overeating. It's built in accountability and portion control. Try fitday.com for instance to get going.
These are all things to set yourself up for success.
One more thing - don't dread these changes. Look forward to them. Get excited about them. Embrace them. Find the joy in this. Eating well is nothing to fear or loathe - remaining obese is.
You DO have the ability to change this. I am CERTAIN of it. Certain.
Get excited. Make a plan. Push yourself. Challenge yourself. Learn some new skills. Take it one day at a time, heck 1 minute at a time if need be
Post number 2:
The hardest part is starting and those first few weeks, when it appears that what you are giving up is SO much in compared to what you are getting back.
I think one of the biggest problems is that people (I was surely one of them for decades) think that adhering to a healthy lifestyle - eating well - is some kind of miserable thing. But it's not. It's not!!! You must look for the joy in this - not the dread. You must focus on what you are GAINING - not giving up. Fairly quickly into my journey I fell in love with eating right and what it did for me. It turned out to be a joy, not the burden I always feared.
At some point you have to come to the realization that a change must occur. That you can't go on eating whatever, whenever. The price is just too high. So you have to come to terms with that and realize there is some restrictive component to losing weight (which you will see turns out to be a good thing) and staying there.
I think (know) that people make this whole process MUCH harder than need be by giving in so easily and going off their plan. Certainly calorie wise, the scale will go down slower and you’ll miss out on that excitement of faster weight loss, so the rewards will not surface as quickly, but more importantly – they don’t allow the good habits to form and become ingrained in themselves and THAT’S what makes this process much harder. Because once you get these habits ingrained in you, it’s much smoother sailing.
It's a matter of working past that initial, temporary discomfort stage as your old eating habits die down and you incorporate the new healthy ones. That is the most difficult stage. “The transition.” But you MUST push through it. You must, you must, you must. It is the only way. You've just got to suck it up and do it. You have to hang on till you get to that sweet spot – of the rewards surfacing, of your cravings and old lifestyle diminishing and as the new habits begin to solidify and take hold/ And they do. They do! This new healthy lifestyle eventually becomes automatic, second nature - and yes - enjoyable. But you must allow it to, working past that initial discomfort.
Doing what is necessary to get to and to remain slim, trim, fit, active and healthy is nothing to fear or loathe - STAYING OVERWEIGHT IS. There is no deprivation in passing up high calorie/high quantity food - eating it is. When you remain overweight – that is the deprivation. You are depriving yourself of the best you possible – this is not debatable – it is fact.
So how does one start? I would love for you to start by getting excited. Get excited about the changes you are about to implement. Because adhering to a healthy lifestyle is no prison sentence, but a key to freedom that will open up more doors to you than you can possibly imagine, ones you didn't even realize were closed.
In the beginning, every time I wanted to give into a craving, I'd exercise for 15 minutes and then if I still wanted whatever it was, I'd have it. Guess what...I only ate it the first time. I was too exhausted to get my butt up and go to the kitchen to get whatever it was I was craving. And by the time I got over from being exhausted, the craving passed.
Ambie - It's definitely difficult sometimes to not give in. I just started a few weeks ago, but I can already tell that it's getting easier. A quarter pounder from a fast few place doesn't even sound that good. If I would have heard myself say that 3 weeks ago, I would have thought I was crazy. It's truly getting easier every day.
It's never going to be "easy". But, I've started loving how I feel after I exercise, how I feel after I eat healthy yummy foods. And, that thought wins out over giving in to "junk food". Now, I do think that if I limit myself to NEVER having a "treat" or something I loved, that I would run right to it. I try to work in healthier, but still tasty, versions. Some taste better to me than the fatty version did!!!
The first weeks are the hardest. I found planning the BEST. I knew I would get cravings, I knew I would want to get up. So, I made sure I had healthy snacks (lots of fruit, for me) and then felt better. For me, most of the fight is mental. But, no one else is going to lose this weight for me, it's up to me.
Thank you for everyone's responses. Food is not going to win anymore. I am going to win! I deserve this for me and my family. I am not going to feel guilty anymore for what I put in my mouth. I think I am going to go back to writing down everything I eat. For some reason when I do this it makes stay on track better. Thanks for everyone's support. My husband tried but if you have never been this over weight it is just hard to understand how it is.
Realistically, the food will win sometimes. Sadly, I've found it doesn't taste nearly as good as the idea of it sounds. Thankfully, I toss it now instead of continuing to eat the whole thing to prevent wasting it.
Ambie My Sweet....I Agree It Is A Choice--I Also Agree That Food Pulls Us Towards Sometimes With What Seems Like Magnetic Force, And When We First Start Making Dietary Changes Our Fat Cells Think We Are Starving Them To Death And Our Entire System Balks! And To Look At Most Of Us One Would Not Think That We Are "malnourished" But In Fact We Are, And Dehydrated, Our Bodies Are Really Craving The Foods That Are Good For Us...but, After Years Of Giving In And "medicating" With Food, My Mind Is Telling Me Something Different--it Is Saying
CASE IN POINT--TONIGHT FOR MY DINNER BREAK AT WORK--I GOT INTO THE CAR GOING TO BK--IT IS NOT FAR FROM HERE, BUT ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT WAS A CB & FRIES, COULD PRACTICALLY EVEN SMELL IT FROM WHERE I WORK WHEN I GOT THERE AND WAS SITTING IN LINE I WAS STILL STRUGGLING WITH IT, THE PROVERBIAL ON ONE SHOULDER AND THE ON THE OTHER AND I WAS ABLE TO TAKE A SECOND, TAKE A BREATH AND ASK MYSELF "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS"? ANSWER WAS I DIDN'T AND I AM SO THANKFUL I CHOSE BETTER FOR MYSELF, I GOT A GRILLED CHICKEN SANDWICH AND A SIDE SALAD, ONLY USING 1/2 OF THE DRESSING...there is strength in every decision/every healthy choice we make
Food has a tendency to sneak into my mouth when I'm feeling bored or sorry for myself or sometimes even when I feel good about myself and think I deserve a reward. I have found that I do well getting past my cravings when I keep my head in the game, that is, I HAVE to write down everything I eat, otherwise I let things slip.
I also found that when I got a bad craving, if I just focused on the craving (what do I want right now, why do I want it, what will happen if I don't get it?) I found that it passed eventually and the horrible things I imagined happening while I was mid-crave, didn't happen at all; I was fine. That made it easier to make it through the next one.
I find it sometimes helps me to 'put off' that treat-"Oh, I really want it now, but I shouldn't have it too often, so, do I NEED it now, or can I put it off an hour? Then I can enjoy it at home!" or whatever. More often than not, I put it off until I forget about it. Sometimes the times comes where I really DO need to go out for chinese food, but I can feel good about doing it once a month (or whathaveyou). And by the time I really need it, man oh man, do I enjoy it!
You gotta have a plan, but each day do the things that work for you.
My Grandmother, who had a crass side to her used to say, "People in **** want ice water, but they don't get it".
I think the real key for *me* was coming to terms with the fact that I had eaten anything and everything I had desired for years. I ate my way up to 333 pounds, and it did nothing for me except make me unhealthy, fat, depressed, a recluse, and miserable. Food did that. Food controlled my life. I suffered, I mean really SUFFERED because of food. I was done, I couldn't take it anymore. Every day I put it off was another day of being fat and miserable. I just decided it was time. It was time to take control. We hate it when other people try to control us, but for some reason we think it's fine when sugar/carbs/fats do.
You just got to become a stubborn @itch when it comes to food. Treat it like you would treat a telemarketer...just say no.
How do you not let food win?
ON ONE SHOULDER AND THE 
ON THE OTHER AND I WAS ABLE TO TAKE A SECOND, TAKE A BREATH AND ASK MYSELF "DO YOU REALLY WANT TO DO THIS"? ANSWER WAS I DIDN'T AND I AM SO THANKFUL I CHOSE BETTER FOR MYSELF, I GOT A GRILLED CHICKEN SANDWICH AND A SIDE SALAD, ONLY USING 1/2 OF THE DRESSING...there is strength in every decision/every healthy choice we make
