[starvingforchange]

I feel like such a failure. I have totally gone off my diet and now am so depressed I just don't feel like doing anything. I was doing so well and got to my ideal weight and somehow self defeating tendencies took me down again. I started a blog in order to share my journal to lift my head off the couch and persevere again. It feels like I am always hungry and always on a diet. So frustrating!

[canadjineh]

Dear Starving (may I call you that?? lol): Hang in there, just realize that this moment is only here momentarily. Here comes the next moment! And in that moment you are, (now were) successful - you didn't eat bad food or abuse your body with drugs, etc. Live moment to moment and tell yourself "Right now, I am going to love my body by treating it right." Don't worry about the previous moment... just keep working in the now and toward a better future.

Sounds simplistic, but it works. We could get into a huge circle of guilt because of previous actions and feel we are worthless and therefore deserve to treat ourselves as worthless.

Stop right there and do some cognitive behavioral therapy: Look in the mirror, deep into your eyes, don't flinch or look away, and say out loud one thing you like about yourself, then write it down on a list. Do this every day, add one more thing to the list, and re-read it often.

When you get frustrated put on loud music & dance like no one's watching, cause no one is, it's just for you. Get some sweat going and you will feel better, then take a hot shower and paint your nails. Works every time, and it's hard to open the potato chip bag with wet nails.

I hope I made you laugh a little bit... you probably have a lovely smile. Don't give up, you will get toward your goal again, but start with small ones first - not the "I want to lose 100 lbs," kind but "Today I will eat healthy to fuel my body because I love me."



Liana

[Pattience]

Hi There. I just wrote a lot of crap about myself just then. So i've deleted it. I am sure it would have bored you a lot.
Here's a big hug instead. .. if i can find the thing….

I Kept this bit in from before.
One more piece of advice, have a session or two with a counsellor. You may need the extra support right now.

I wish you could tell us more about yourself and what went wrong.
Self defeating behaviours need to be factored into a diet strategy preferably from the beginning. I mean i think you need to think about them early on and be ready for them because it takes a while to build up the mental resolve to avoid falling into the same old traps.

Also how long have you been off the wagon and have you put it all back on or just some? This is relevant because sometimes people feel a lot worse than the damage warrants.

Certainly with me, when i fall off the wagon, often times, i make a mad dash to put it all back on as soon as i can and it seems like i'm back to square one in about three weeks. Which is utterly stupid. So now i think i need to give a little bit of thoughts to these sorts of tendencies while i am on my diet so i can prepare for them.

being hungry and depression seem together. But i think the hungriness part can become a sort of habit so that one is hungry even when the depression has past.

Anyway i'm off and rambling again.

Keeping your journal should be a good thing. But go easy on yourself. Focus on getting your mood back up and gradually you will find yourself in a good place where you are ready to start on the weightloss again. The poster above gives some good advice. Do what she says.

I want to add that you can avoid starving whilst on a diet. And when you are ready to hear more about that, let me know. I think i've written enough for now.

[starvingforchange]

I went on a radical diet some year or so ago and got down to 120 pounds. I am 5 foot 8 inches so this looked thin on me. I was not starving but the medifast program made me crazy and then all of a sudden I started to eat real food again and I gained weight. In saying this, I am not endorsing nor disparaging the Medifast program but it just simply could not be long term for me and I did not transition well. I had a lot of pressure from my husband, who is really thin, to eat all sorts of foods and I just kind of fell of the wagon. I have gained about 20 pounds and feel awful. I realize that this may not seem like a lot but when you cannot fit into any clothes and are afraid to go out, it seems like an impossible journey to get back to where I started. I put so much work into getting to a slim figure and I am now so mad I packed on a ton of weight. I worry that my weight will just keep going up. I know this may be irrational but I just want to feel that confidence again.

[Pattience]

Thanks so much for telling us what happened.

I don't know anything about the medifast diet. I could look it up but i am eating lunch right now. Might look it up later.

Ok so i know what 20 pounds is like. Its a lot on me as well. Its about what i've lost so far and about what i ve got left to lose.

So next time don't go back on that diet. I just think a good diet needs to be close to how you eat in normal life so you can minimise the transition back.

In fact, with my current diet, i don't think there's going to be any transition except just slightly increasing what i eat so i don't become anorexic. That is to say, i'm eating well and want to continue to eat well forever now.

That means i'm committed to giving up sweets pretty much forever because they are a huge problem for me. Other things like bread and pasta do not trigger binges and bad eating behaviours. nor do fries and pizza, though they are currently not part of my diet. But i notice from this site that these foods are a problem for a lot of people so in that case the approach taken in the South Beach Diet seems like a good idea but i think when people go on to the super protein diets because they are afraid of bread and pasta, that's taking it too far and i think long term it must be unhealthy.

Luckily i don't have a husband or kids to make weightloss harder. I do find it hard when my skinny sister and her husband are staying. My sister is an athlete but loves sweets too. She just exercises more to compensate but otherwise doesn't eat huge amounts of food. It winds me up being around her and food. And i get fat. I think its a jealousy thing. Anyway i won't have to deal with that for a while because she's just got another job on the far side of the world and won't be coming home so often.

Ok here's my diet in case it will help.
No refined sugar foods at all. no lollies no ice-cream, no cake, no chocolate and so on because i just can't be moderate with these things. I've tried and it doesn't work for me. I intend to try to do this for the rest of my life. But my outlet clause is if someone outside the home offers me something homemade or really wonderful, or i'm at a restaurant with other people (not my family), then i can have dessert if i want to. The thing is if i'm going to potentially ruin my diet because of dessert, then it better be worth it. christmas will be a challenge and i will deal with it later on. Might try to avoid xmas sweets too.

Eat three meals a day and only snack if i am hungry. My snack foods will only ever be things like fruit (maybe even a whole bowl of fruit salad) or a sandwich like a salad sandwich. It might bugger up my calorie limit for the day but it won't bugger up my diet. But in general i try to make my meals filling and big enough to last me through to the next meal.

My food is nutritious. I'm mainly vegetarian and now i'm eating a lot more beans and lentils to try to keep my protein up which is a bit of a challenge for me.

I only eat things like cheese and nuts in my salads and as a part of a meal so that i don't eat too much of these things.

I spend a lot of time working on my mental resolve. Building my commitment to my diet. It keeps me strong. When things are a bit tough, like last week, i focus on building my resolve against turning to food if you know what i mean. I focus on dealing with the problem instead.

I don't rely on formal exercise as i always find it hard to sustain it in the longterm so i don't want my weightloss to depend on it. HOwever, i work in the garden and generally try to be active and consider it part of my weightloss thing. Though i am nowhere near as active as i should be.

I am not in a huge hurry. Slowly is going to get me there this time.

I weigh myself every day and don't worry about the fluctuations. I have a good idea what they mean.

I keep a food diary fairly religiously and just tweak what i'm eating if i want to increase the loss. But try to avoid getting hungry. I keep mentally happy by knowing i'm eating well rather than by seeing the scale go down. I mean that makes me happy to but for me the main thing is eating well. I'm trying really hard to focus on my eating habits because long term that's going to be the thing that keeps the weight off.

I try to avoid eating at night after dinner. And i try to eat dinner quite early. So i try to avoid going to bed too late.

I often have a glass of wine at about 5pm. This gives me calories and is nice but doesn't lead to any out of control eating.

I keep processed foods to a minimum. Fruit and veg are a big part of my diet. I bulk out meals with vegies. This makes you feel like you have eaten a lot and its so low in calories its not going to hurt you.

I try to drink more water though i drink nescafe with milk throughout the day. I always take water with me when i go out and sometimes take a sandwich and fruit and carrots.

When i go to the city, if i don't want to eat a sandwich from home, i go to a restaurant like korean or japanese and even though the food is very salty and makes me hold water overnight, its interesting food and generally low calories. I don't go to the sushi bar anymore because its too moreish and i eat too much. Or i might have a salad sandwich on wholegrain with a bit of avocado from a cafe.

In my salads i make at home, which is what i try to have to lunch most days i put a bit of crumbled fetta cheese. At the moment i'm using goats fetta. Its so good and makes the salad so tasty. There's a brand here i can buy in a box and it lasts me for ages.

today i've made a salad that's quite experimental because i've put pear in it and left out the olive oil

This is my basic salad recipe which i eat most days for lunch. At night i like a hot meal.
1 cup canned beans/lentils
2- 3 vegies finely chopped - usually a whole tomato and finely grated carrot or beetroot but today its celery, pear and cucumber (which is quite delicious)
5 walnut halves broken (but could also be a small amount of seeds or other nuts)
balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil dressing, sometimes with crushed garlic. Never too much of this. Just enough to make the salad zing. 1-2tsp, more balsamic if necessary
1 thin slice of fetta. maybe about 50g or less
salt and black pepper.
sometimes i tbsp of finely chopped onion which i keep in the fridge so i don't have to chop it every day.

Sometimes but not always i add greens.

The cheese dressing and nuts make this a very tasty dish. And the variety of combinations is endless.

One day i made an awful one by using rice and lots of fancy deli stuff. So now I'm back to fresh vegies and beans/lentils. And rice definitely doesn't work. And all the fancy foods aren't necessary because my ordinary salad is so tasty already.

Not fitting into your clothes makes you feel bad i know. I got to that point. But when that happens, i think you can feel a bit better by buying clothes that fit are comfortable and you like. It won't make you want to give up trying to lose but it will help lift your mood which i think is important for weightloss. I thin its important to try to build your happiness so see a counsellor or your gp and get some supportive counselling for a while if you can afford it. It is often motivating in itself.