[Lunatique93]

Hi, I’m new here so nice to meet you all where do I start? Well, I’ve had always issues with my weight, I was really obese for my height (160cm) I weighted 227lb and 2 years ago I decided to change my life. I was so motivated. I told myself that it would be the last time I would try to lose weight for my own good. So with healthy eating and exercise (the hard part) I lost 95lb, pretty amazing hah? But, life happened and when I was so close to reach my goal, I started to feel unmotivated, depressed and stressed out. Unfortunately that was a recipe for disaster and an old habit of mine come back, Binge Eating and now 6 months since then I gained back 31lb and… well I don’t know how to come back on track ‘cause I feel like a such a failure and I don’t trust myself to stop my binge eating (That I know it’s not for emotional problems, It’s a habit) and lose weight. I know it sounds silly but that’s the way I feel. Help Please
PS: Sorry if my English is not so good. (It’s not my native language)

[Earthling]

I am in the same boat. Lost a lot and now struggling with controlling binges. I gained back 10 over the winter. It's awful. I had such high expectations from myself and its a slippery feeling right now.
The good news is, that slippery feeling is an illusion. I find that i have to remind myself that gravity or some unknown force is NOT pushing me back to my old weight. Banish that feeling of inevitability and you'll find optimism and hope again. Failure? How are you a failure, you have accomplished so much. Struggling with regaining is a rite of passage for weight loss. Welcome it first... and then kick it in the butt. But only after you have welcomed and accepted it as an opportunity for even further accomplishment.
Then and only then, I think, will it lend its rear end to await your boot print.
As for the binging, some binge ers never really recover from binging. i am one of them and that is OK. It doesn't mean you can't lose weight. It's more a matter of not obsessing over an episode and learning how not to use it as an excuse for total relinquishment of control. Beating yourself up or putting yourself down, or just feeling disappointed in yourself for ANY reason, means that the binge has won. You gotta let it go, girl.
Remember to love yourself and be patient.

[kelijpa]

Lunatique and Earthling love your two names, they go together great.

You guys are way ahead of the game by recognizing something is going on well before you've gained back all of your weight. I'm here to tell you that even if you gain it all back plus some (as I have personally done a few times) it is still possible to turn things around and find your healthy lifestyle.

Don't get down on yourself for slipping, be proud of yourself for finding your way back to a healthier lifestyle, however long or however many times it takes to make it stick.

Earthling great words these

Struggling with regaining is a rite of passage for weight loss. Welcome it first... and then kick it in the butt. But only after you have welcomed and accepted it as an opportunity for even further accomplishment.

best wishes to you

[mars735]

Earthling & kelijpa said it so well. You've done an amazing accomplishment! Keeping the weight off is a huge undertaking, really a different and more challenging one than getting it off in the first place. I did some binge eating after losing a lot of weight. It freaked me out at first, but now I know that urges and cravings are part of my relationship to food, for better or worse, and I don't necessarily have to act on every urge. They go away after a short while if I acknowledge but don't react to them.

Some things that have helped: I avoid getting too hungry, incl. really rigorous calorie restriction. That means if I do some serious overeating, I just go back to my plan after that, not bread and water, lol. I don't get mad at myself, in fact, the opposite. I no longer strive to be a perfect dieter, just one who self-corrects after every slip. I make sure to enjoy what I'm eating, whether it's Cheetohs or broccoli.

I know my limits with sweets and pretty much stay away from them and any other food that I have trouble eating in reasonable amounts.

I hope that helps a little.

[Lunatique93]

Thank u so much girls! Reading what you wrote made me feel better, now is up to me, I have to find my inner strength and trust myself. Thank u again

[Pattience]

I hope you can read English well as i've written a lot.

Although i was never quite at your weight and or your height, the binging and loss /gain story sounds a lot like me. I have eaten and binged for emotional reasons but years ago. In recant years its just become habit. A thought for ice-cream or lollies or whatever would enter my mind, as random as any other thought arriving. And i would just go 'yes ok'. Most of the time i didn't even try to to resist it. I never keep the stuff fin the house but nothing will stop me driving 20 minutes to the supermarket or petrol station to get some sweet goodies and if all the shops are shut i would just eat bowl after bowl of cereal with milk and sugar or lots of sultanas or whatever was on hand that could possibly fill that space. But resisting is unpleasant when i did try so mostly i didn't try to too hard. I would just give in and go with the flow. Going to the city for shopping was terrible. I could really only think about getting a milkshake and so i'd go from one food place to the next and waste a lot of time doing it.

Also i've lost weight many times and as i'm sure everyone here believes, i always do it believing its the last time. Even the journey i am on now, i am adamant that this is the last time. You have to feel like that to get anywhere with a diet i think. No one can predict the future and we need to be optimistic to lose even a pound so what would be the point of being pessimistic. We can't help but be optimistic to make us get on and stay on this weightloss journey for any length of time.

I believe i have found some keys for me this time. I've added new things into the mix that i haven't done in previous times. So far i've been doing it four months and i feel great They are:

1. prioritising mental health and not letting stress, depression and disappointments get in the way. When they start to occur, i am trying to tackle them sooner rather than letting things get really bad before i get help. I'm sticking to my eating program through whatever happens. I even believe i can do it, because when i gave up smoking over 17 years ago, i had to do it through many stressful situations. And i hated putting on weight but i felt it was more important to quit cigarettes than to be thin. So my being fixed and firm about what i had to do to quit has kept me off the cigs all these years. So now I'm doing the same thing with my food, particularly sweets which is my binge food of choice.

2. But first there is another new thing this time. Formal exercise is not part of the plan. I know we need to exercise. I know it helps with weightloss and is generally good for our general health. And i know that i'm not really doing enough at the moment but i am doing some things even though its not formal. And i do intend to do it formally but i am a little concerned about that too. I am concerned that it will end up causing me to regain the weight i lose when i stop with my regular training program. You see i want to run in a race at the end of the year and for that i'll have to train for a while. I will probably lose the last few kilos during that time. And that is the risk that concerns me. If i've any hope at all of coming back down from that level of fitness and slimness (and dropping the exercise as i will have to do because its too hot here to continue even if i wanted to) and not regaining, i will have to be very careful and controlled about it. So i'm trying to prepare myself for it in advance. I haven't got it worked out yet but reducing my food intake as i let my intense fitness slow down to something less time consuming will be tricky.


So they are the main new things i'm doing to lose this weight and keep it off for ever. But i also have other key aspects to what i'm doing this time which are developments on what i've done before.

3. I'm paying more attention to my food in that i am tailoring myself a way of eating that i think i can do forever. So i',m making it as nutritious as possible, as easy as possible, as tasty as possible without risking making me want to eat a lot. In past diets, i alway ate healthy but i think i did not include enough variety and often did not worry too much about protein. I also would reduce my fats perhaps too radically even though then as now its mainly "good fats". I've now found that its true that a bit more fat is actually helpful in satiety and doesn't slow my weight loss or make weight gain. With that i'm probably eating more than i used to do on weight loss programs. I have learnt that too much severe restricting causes rebounds sooner or later. I'm not reducing my calories so severely. And i've even stopped and paused my weightloss for a month this april, and increasing my daily calories to hopefully speed up my metabolism again which i now believe was probably slowing due to the restricting which is unavoidable. All that has come about because of new information i've learnt this time from some books and articles. But mostly an insight that was triggered by an article i read a few years ago about why most people tend to regain the weight they lose. the key word there is leptin. But its actually a bit more complicated than one hormone. There are a number of hormones involved and they all do different things and help or problematise weight loss in different ways. They are leptin, seratonin, insulin and dopamine. Dopamine is the one that is engaged with the habit of binging. Seratonin is probably part of the reason why we start doing it. And there are others. But its because of the leptin that i've decided a pause now and again is a good idea. (you can read up on nutrition wonderland to learn about how these hormones affect our efforts to gain weight. And also on web md. And also in a book called The Don't Get Fat Diet by Dr Amanda Sainsbury-Salis which avoids the technicalities but conceptualises it into easy to use ideas.

4. Over the years i've learnt i can't do moderation. I can't eat sweets in moderation really. I've tried restricting myself to making lovely old fashioned puddings at home but no i couldn't sustain the restraint - (this is about insulin and its the same for people who believe they can't eat bread or pasta in moderation). DAily efforts in restraint are simply too difficult to sustain day after day for me with regard to sweets but i have no problem with other carbs most of the time. I decided some time ago that quitting sweets was the way for me. I've done it once or twice before with success. And then like you, life would get in the way. I find it easy once i get started. YOu will too if you try it. This time i've refined my process a bit more. this time i have figured out a few situations that i consider low risk when i can indulge in sweets. That won't give rise to too many situations a year and it will always be in a situation where i can't go crazy and eat to my hearts content. I have strict rules around it and i am building up my resolve now. So I prepare myself for such situations. Xmas will be the hardest no doubt. So far i've tested it twice and its been good.

Now to get started. WEll i had to wait until the moment was right. It seems to be beyond any control. I've never been able to force start a diet at any old whim. I always have a number of false starts and longish periods of feeling crappy about my weight. But this time i was in a pretty good headspace and i had been feeling disgusted about my appearance for sometime. I like that intense feeling of disgust as it tends to be motivating ultimately. So then at the beginning of the year, one day on my way to the supermarket to buy sweets for breakfast, i decided on a New Year's resolution that i would be thin by the end of the year. Instead of going to the supermarket, i went to my friends' house where i had xmas cake for breakfast lol. A chat about my plan to lose weight and went home. i haven't looked back since. A day or so later, i decided i would have a one day water fast which i thought i might have to do several times but in the end i haven't done it since then. It helped but it was hard but then its only one day.

But if i were in your shoes again, i would try this idea as a possible easy way to get started if none of the above helps. Try deciding to eat healthy food at your current maintenance calories. i.e. work out how many calories you need to eat to sustain your current weight. Start preparing better food up to that calorie level. count your calories. keep a food log. Work on improving the quality of the food you are eating. Do it for about a week and then see if you can't start to either reduce your calories a little bit - not too much or just keep working on improving the quality of your food so that you are eating more fruit at least 2 pieces and vegetables (2.5 cups per day including at least 5 different types) and balanced in other areas of carbs proteins and fats. you might not start off eating ideally but you can work towards it. And eat in mealtimes. Something like 7-9pm, 12-1pm and 5-7pm this works well for me. Don't leave dinner til late at night.

[worththeeffort2]

I am also a non-purging bulimic. A resource that really helped me was the book Brain Over Binge. It helped me re-frame the way I thought about my bingeing habit and has helped me gain control over the impulse. Focusing on dealing with the impulse to binge was the key to me becoming successful with abstinence from bingeing. The book is available through Amazon. I do highly recommend it.

[mars735]

Originally Posted by worththeeffort2

I am also a non-purging bulimic. A resource that really helped me was the book Brain Over Binge. It helped me re-frame the way I thought about my bingeing habit and has helped me gain control over the impulse. Focusing on dealing with the impulse to binge was the key to me becoming successful with abstinence from bingeing. The book is available through Amazon. I do highly recommend it.

Yes to this! I'm in the compulsive overeater category, and also binge ate a number of times after phasing off my diet. This book has been a huge help.

[Avaantika chawla]

Hey
I am a 20 year old law student.
I am facing problems controlling my urges to cheat on my diet I was 107 kgs and now I am 64 kgs and I have been on a diet for more than a year. I am just not being able to control myself anymore from binging even though I feel like I am so close to my 52 kg target . Any advice ladies?

[welder]

Here is a little guide I wrote about managing your temptation. I would post it in a new thread but this is my first post and most forums frown on starting a thread for your first post but these steps have really helped me....

1. Identify your temptations. (you have to know what foods tempt you)
2. Figure out what triggers your temptation (boredom, frustration, stress)
3. Think about what you are succumbing to. (remember why you want to lose weight in the first place)
4. Exercise your will power. (visualize your self saying no or remember all the things you are grateful for)
5. Accept that you are going to be tempted (don't pretend you are not tempted its going to happen)
6. Replace your temptations with distractions. (this one is most effective for me. Just think about whatever else you love besides eating and do that)

Hope this helps